


Supervillains, Studying, and Heroes, If You Have the Time

by SorrenBlueJay12



Category: Basically an original work whoops, MCU, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Original Work
Genre: (I basiaclly just say he has an ouchy and treated it, ), A CAT! (she deserves two mentions), A supervillain proteccing a rando civilain, Anxiety, Collaboration, Dad Stark, Depression, Emotional Abuse, F/F, F/M, Food problems???, Gayness, Gen, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Human Disaster Tony Stark, M/M, Marvel - Freeform, My relationships in here are pretty much all of the above so be prepared for casual mentions, NY - Freeform, Neglect, OCCCCsssss, Other, Parental Tony Stark, Past Abuse, Peter Parker - Freeform, Pranks and Practical Jokes, Pronouns are confusing, Rainbows, Spider-Man - Freeform, Spooderboi!, Superhero gang, Superheroes, Supervillain, THE QUEER, fun times, i write this instead of sleeping, is that a trope?, it is in my brain, it's all cool here, mcu - Freeform, questioning gender, spiderman - Freeform, superhero, that trope, the characters are my children, tony stark - Freeform, wound mentions
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-14
Updated: 2019-08-30
Packaged: 2020-08-23 16:34:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 31,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20245924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SorrenBlueJay12/pseuds/SorrenBlueJay12
Summary: Dark Fire isn't like most villains that pop up routinely in NY to tangle with the Avengers. He isn't looking to take over the world (unless it is absolutely necessary, of course) or kidnap whole sections of the state; he's rather more interested in things like... the insulin crisis. The sketchy tax history of billionaires. A homelessness crisis. Lead in paint walls all over the city.Aiden isn't most teens; he's kinda been treated like a bit of an indoor cat his whole childhood, and his Sis says he has crippling anxiety because of it. He disagrees, but the point stands that he can barely order a coffee without making a concerned friend.Tony Stark will never be most people, never was. But he has his moments.Pepper says it's not normal to collect Smart Children. Pepper is mistaken.





	1. An Anxious Encounter

**Author's Note:**

> Hiya. Thanks for for reading and everything, since the summary isn't the best. I hope you stick around and read more. I'll have semi-weekly updates hopefully, but I have a lot already written out so I might be a nice person and do an extra chapter or something occasionally. I don't speak Chinese. My character does. Bear with me. Google Translate is not the best, I will avoid using it (and thus, Chinese) Tell me about any grammar or spelling problems pls, no mean comments or I will rain down fire and brimstone and everything, and have a fun time. I might (probably will) gift to anyone who comments, so go wild.

I wasn’t running away. I wasn’t.

I was just being helpful. Going out to help my sis, Aaida, with the grocery shopping. I just needed some fresh air from the house, a nice change of pace.

Well, mission accomplished, I thought as I fingered the strap to the paper shopping bag I held. What now?

I didn’t want to go back yet -and yes, want is the right word there- so I needed something else to do.

Well, usually when this happened I wandered the city for hours at a time, just looking and listening. I people-watched a lot. But I was feeling… tired? Again?

I was getting exhausted more and more often. And food was starting to get weird. Tasteless, unattractive. It didn’t help it seemed my stomach had stopped working, and my ability to feel hunger was suddenly spotty. Anything I ate had a taste like water did when you were really thirsty: it kind of had a taste, but in the same way color existed. It was there because your body said so, not because the world suddenly got its act together.

So wandering was out of the question. But then I caught sight of a nice coffee shop, and decided some caffeine and people-watching might be in order. It looked nice, like how I would picture something along the lines of heaven, if I believed in it. (I didn’t. Mother was devout, or used to be, but she never bothered to take me to church after my tenth birthday, and even before that it was spotty, despite me being a ‘child in need’ of religion or whatever) 

There’s a glass door with “king’s bakery” written on it in fancy lettering. The window doesn’t show baked goods, but it does have small paintings of them at the bottom and a view inside. The shop looks to be littered with mismatched tables and bean bags. The fairy lights strung around the place are a combination of red and gold, and the glass cases full of pastries and the small counter with the cash register situation is pretty cute. Overall, the place is patched together and worn and so homey I want to die here. 

Oh yeah, I’m going in there. Coffee and fairy lights? Just my kind of place.

I walked in and was immediately hit with a variety of sights and sounds and smells. Everything was warm and nice and homey, just how it had looked outside. There were indeed beanbags, and little posters around offering for people to translate things around the shop (I wonder if they have Chinese yet. Or the one dialect I speak, anyway), along with arrows pointing to piles of papers probably translating everything. The one on top of the closest pile is in Braille. 

It smelled real nice, like a fluffy sugar cloud mixed with fresh bread and icing. There’s cinnamon, chocolate, and freshly cut fruit in the air as well. 

Behind the counter is a girl with kinky curly black hair, carmel skin, and a bright smile. She’s reading something on her phone, scrolling through it, and laughing quietly. 

Most of the bean bags and tables look to be filled up with either students or very tired employees trying to finish their report, dang it. The constant background of chatter is kind of comforting. 

I understand the girl is probably the cashier, the person I talk to in order to get literally anything out of this little trip. But she looks busy, and what if I annoy her? Or what if she’s actually not an   
employee? What if she has more important things to-

A man opens the door behind me. He’s tall, really tall next to my short frame. (why did I get the single smol gene in the family tree again?) He has a strong jawline, bigish eyes, hair shorter than mine but in a similar semi-swoopy style, and is wearing a button-up rolled up to the elbows and dark slacks. He looks like a tired businessman, really. He brushes past me on his way in, a gentle rub on my left arm, but suddenly I feel different. Warmer, safer, more hungry.

Geez, was I really that starved for attention? I’ll bother Aaida later, then, if my hormones are so jacked.

The girl looks up at the door closing. She immediately sets down her phone and straightens. “Hello, gentlemen,” she says, putting on an even brighter smile, “ Welcome to King’s Bakery, I’m Brooke, what can I get you?”

Oh. Oh. Ok, socialization time. No big deal, just order a coffee.

This isn’t like starbucks where everything is in gibberish, is it?

Damnit, I didn’t think this through…

The man breezes past me with a small glance my way and strides up to the counter. “Hello,” He says smoothly. Actually, everything about him seems smooth in some way. Calm, collected. God, I wish I was like that. “May I have an Americano and a few of the brigadeiros please?”

“Of course, sir, but this is not made of American chocolate, it’s unsweetened cocoa powder and butter, along with a few toppings. It might be different then what you’re used to.”

The man smiles slightly, tilting his head down in a gentle nod. “I’m quite aware, but thank you. And give one of those pastries for the kid behind me, will you? Have me pay for it, if you will allow me.”

“Of course,” Brooke responds, typing something into the register in front of her, “we have the Chilean chilenitos, they’re essentially flat biscuits sandwiching a milk-based sweet sauce called manjar, covered in a meringue and the optional sprinkle.”

“I’ll be alright, thank you.”   
“I’m grabbing the one with sprinkles,” Brooke informs us, “you look like a sprinkles guy.”  
She looks at me and smiles before grabbing some wax paper and putting some chocolate balls covered in chocolate sprinkles and my white rectangles into two bags. 

Oh God, he’s paying for a pastry he’s giving to me. How do I respond? Thank him? Refuse? No, that’s rude. But I don’t wanna eat right now, I’m not really hungry right now, haven’t been for a while, which is weird, since I haven’t eaten since yesterday and it’s currently three in the afternoon.

“I accept the compliment.” the man says easily, like talking to this girl is the easiest thing in the world. Suddenly I feel the urge to cry, which really isn’t great. I’m in public, a temper tantrum like that might just be then end of me and my self esteem.

A girl with black hair pulled back in a ponytail nearby doesn’t look up from her phone when she says, “Take the pastries, dude, free food is free food. Plus, the stuff Brooke and her mom makes is delicious.”

“Lay off him, Star,” Brooke says, grabbing two cups and starting to make an americano in one of them. 

I now felt the need to make a sound like a wounded pterodactyl, which also isn’t good.

God, this should be a lot easier than it is.

I clear my throat to make sure my words come out right. I’ve been working on bucking off a stutter recently, I don’t need to have my voice sound like a caveman in the arctic on top of it. “Right, uh. Can just get a black coffee, then? Uh, with the pastry I guess. Um, thank you?” I aim the last statement at the mystery man, but it comes out as more of a question than intended.

Shoot.

Brooke nods placatingly. “Lovely. Here’s your order, sir.” The strange man takes his Americano and bag of sugary wonders and moves off to lean against the nearest wall, staring at nothing.

Brooke turns around and starts making my own drink, and I’m suddenly aware of the waiting woman at my back, semi-grumpily waiting to order her own caffeine boost.

The drink and white meringue thing comes quickly, I walk off to a bunch of bean-bags in one corner, all amassed into a big pile. And then I do one of the things I do very well, if I may say so.

I flopped like a dead man and suppressed both an urge to groan at the socialization and my several near pitfalls and stutters, and the victory in not totally crashing and burning in that interaction. My carefully positioned coffee to keep from spilling in my fall felt pleasantly warm in hand, and I let go of the grocery bag gladly.

“Nice, dude,” says another voice. I resist groaning once again.   
“I’m Ray,” the voice says, a male teen, I think. I can’t know for sure through an eyeful of soft cloth. “Good job scoring some free food. No offense, but you kind of look like you need it.”

Because that’s what I wanted to hear. Damn, was it that bad? Uh, I thought I was doing good! I ate two whole meals the other day, within nine hours!

The dude seems to realize this. “Oh, uh, sorry,” he says, and then continues with the confidence and rambling of a nervous god. “I’m not great on eating, myself. I run track, have as far back as I could, and being in shape usually means my body forgets to update me. I guess I might ignore myself, too.”

I try to decide if I want to dramatically pull a bean bag into my face in embarrassment, then decided to save that for later. Instead, I turn over onto my back into Proper Dramatic Position and marveled at the openness of that statement.

Mother wouldn’t say something like that to me on pain of death, and I suspected I would either have to use the famous puppy-dog eyes on Aaida or put a drink or two in her to get that result.

I get a good look at this guy, ho is indeed a guy. He’s tall, with blond hair shaved on the sides but unruly on top. He is indeed wearing a shirt advertising some high school’s track team, and it’s stretched over some impressive muscles in his chest and core. I think he has abs. Yeah, he doesn’t just run. God, he looks like Superman, if Superman was a decade younger and didn’t wear glasses, trading them in for blue jeans and a nervous smile. 

Okay, queerness. Calm down there, I have a conversation to get through, please and thank you.

“Uh. Okay? I’m Aiden.” I notice the Nice Man slipping away from the wall, claiming a soft beanbag not too far from me, actually.   
The guy smiles at me, as if this is great progress, despite me being quiet enough for a mouse to hear me better than poor Ray did.   
“Yeah, cool,” he says. “You know, I don’t really have any family, but it’d be cool to hear about yours. If you want to tell me.”

Okay, that’s random, whatever. Start with the safe stuff.

Hold on, is he flirting? I’m terrible at detecting when someone’s trying to make a move. What if he is? What if he isn’t? 

Nope, not thinking about that. We’re playing the ‘I’m either oblivious or playing hard to get’ card.

“Uh. Okay. I have a sister, she’s nice. Really nice, actually. Um. She’s in high school, a senior, and she wants to be a doctor. She got into a big university recently, that was exciting. Er. Uh. I have a mom, but uh-”

I trail off there, not quite sure how to put everything into words.

I’m not running away. I’m not. There’s no reason to. It’s not abuse. It isn’t.

So there was no need to tell this stranger about that. Maybe I supplied enough info to satisfy him? 

“That’s cool, dude,” he says, “Do you go to the same school as your sister? You look around freshman age, maybe a year up.”

Clearly not.

Oh no. I don’t really go to school, I hadn’t past kindergarten. Apparently I wouldn’t sit still or pay attention and refused to read (the scrambled letters gave me a headache. It’s better to do things at my own pace, and not on command) anything she put in front of me, which honestly sounds very on brand for me. The teach told my mother all this in a meeting, and she declared me unteachable and never enrolled me the next year. I mean, I can read and stuff just fine, clearly. Aaida brought me all her old stuff whenever the school year finishes, and I study those. It’s actually a lot faster and more efficient than her time at school, and yet I don’t think she’s jealous.

“Uh. I’m...home schooled,” I say lamely, wishing for death to claim me.   
Ray’s face scrunches up like the old textbooks do when I burn them in the backyard. “When your sister’s in public school?”

I’m sweating bullets by now, and I probably look it too. “Um. Yeah? Kinda. Air quotes on home-schooled, I guess. It’s a bit… loose.” From what I’ve observed, the public school system is kinda a mess, so I think that adjective is probably appropriate. 

“I was homeschooled, too, up until high school,” Ray says, clearly still suspicious. “My mom was one of those devout Christians who declare climate change a hoax and think the earth is flat and only wanted her kids to grow up to go to church and make more church going grandkids. She didn’t follow the curriculum the state gave us, it was mostly just the Bible and coloring. Does your mom follow the teaching plan?”

“That’s nice,” I say stiffly, trying to forcibly stop my back from having a cramp later. I take a sip of my no-longer-burning-coffee to buy myself some time and caffeine, not quite knowing how to respond to that. “Uh, yeah. She does. Well, I do. We follow it very closely, yeah.” The I Do part slipped on accident, and I immediately regretted all my life’s decisions. I imagined the tens of school textbooks I’ve studied immediately after Aaida was finished with all her homework, and gave myself that one. Past the stutter on the T at the beginning, I did pretty good there. (T is a problem-letter in my book) 

Ray’s scrunched face problem is not getting any better. “Does she not help you? My mom always was carefully following along with me to make sure I didn’t randomly hail satan.”

“Well. I certainly don’t go in the backyard and perform pagan rituals,” I say in an attempt at humour, the kind Aaida and I like. “She’s uh, she’s gone a lot. My sis helps me out a ton. It gets hard to read a lot. I read something on it somewhere. A longer word. Started with dy, I think. Or e.”

Ray looks very conflicted. “Right, okay,” he says, “What’s your mom gone doing? Business trips?”

I blank on that one. I have no idea what Mother Dearest does in her excursions, though I have my suspicions. I know she pulls a lot of shifts to keep a roof over our (cough, her) heads, but that wouldn’t excuse every hour of her absence, all the time.

Bars, cough cough, bars is the mystery place, (mainly) cough cough.

“Um. Yeah, sure. Business. Stuff. Can I drink my coffee?” I try bailing out on the conversation, see if that works.

Ray suddenly gains a smile. “Yeah, sorry for bothering you,” he says, getting up. “Here’s my number, in case you want to give me a call. Or a text. Whatever is cool. Feel free, uh, whenever. At any point. If you need help. Or something.” He hands me a slip of paper with a set of numbers on it. I didn’t see him write on anything. 

Oh. He didn’t bother me. I don’t want him to think that, I go through that too much. But he’s already walking away… I finger the paper between my finger and thumb and internally sigh. Well, at least I talked to someone besides Aaida today, I guess.

And I’ll definitely be returning to this shop, I think as I sip on the heavenly coffee and take a hesitant bite of the treat I had been given. Yeah, definitely will be returning.

Later, I walk up to my house. It was around midnight by now, since it had taken a while to walk over and I had people-watched lazily in a park for at least four hours. It looked empty and dark, which was good on two accounts. One, empty, so no Mother. Two, dark, meaning a sleeping Aaia. Good, she wasn’t pulling another all-nighter. Last week I had to herd her into the blankets at three AM because she had an important test the next day and blah blah blah. A quick pop-quiz over breakfast eased all anxiousness over her smart-brain's ability, and she did just fine.

Our house was small, one story, surrounded by a cheap chain-link fence. There was a massive hole next to the driveway, where the drunk previous owner had rammed his car through in an effort to park. We never fixed it, and I’m sure not doing it now. 

I walk in, and sigh. Yep, I was alone.

No lights on anywhere, totally quiet past the nearly inaudible sounds from Aaida’s room down the hall, to the right past the dining room. She snored like a bear, put she put in sound proofing last year when she learned it sometimes kept me up at night.

I walk into the kitchen, which was immediately to my left an was also sorta the living room. There was a couch below the window, and a TV on the counter between the fridge and microwave, but the rest was Cheap Cooking Area Supreme. Those bad-quality tiles on the walls and counters, squeaky doors, all that jazz.

I grab a glass of milk since I apparently looked like death at the moment, deciding calories were a good thing right now. And most times. Anyway, I needed to eat. Or drink?

Gah. 

I wouldn't be going to sleep anytime soon. My thoughts were too jumbled for that, and while the offer to stop moving for a while sounded nice, sleep itself did not. And, along with the hunger bit, sleepiness had sorta faded away recently. 

I sip my milk and flung myself onto the sofa, feeling it move beneath me, squak a bit in protest, then dig a spring in my side as vengeance.

I was totally calm for once.

Then the front door opened.

And suddenly I was highly panicked. 

She walks in. She might be pretty if she cleaned up once in a while. Her hair was nice and straight and easy to work with, the same thing Aaida’s got, but it’s greasy from days without washing and she’s somehow managed to get the untanglable tangled. Her face was nice too, clear, high cheekbones, unmarred skin. (lucky her) But something about her always seems predatory, at least around me. Searching, and not in a good way. Expectant, maybe?

Whatever it was, it was sure on display now as she looked at me from the doorway, frozen on the couch.

She doesn’t speak for a long minute. And then I wish she never had when she did. “You didn’t do the dishes.”

Well, of course I didn’t. I was gone for most of the afternoon, and my morning was covered in such a dysfunctional fog I could barely get out of bed to move to the dining room table to watch Aaida eat breakfast, let alone do the damn dishes.

I didn’t say any of that though. Why would she ever want to know? She hadn’t before. “No.” I replied simply. It sounded like nothing: not scared, not brave, not caring or the opposite. Which was kinda surprising based on how my insides cramped up in that moment.

“No what? You didn’t do them. You were supposed to do them. I was gone all day, how do you not do them?”

I think I snapped. Was that the right word, for attacking someone who hasn’t done anything wrong, but might have?

“Maybe if you happened to be around more I might just listen to what you have to say, Mother.” Now my words were something new. Strong. My stutter came out halfway through, but I didn’t try to press it down, and it kinda flowed into the rest of the sentence.

I had surprised us both. “You’re a problem child,” she said quickly, shooting back and aiming directly for a chest shot. “You didn’t get past the first grade. You couldn’t even read! How would I know you’d be smart enough to remember what I said for longer than five minutes? Clearly you can’t do that now, so why should take a minute more to listen to what comes out of your fool mouth?”

I became stone. Totally still, empty of any response. I think I was in shock. She never talked like that. That quickly, forcibly, passionately. 

Did she hate me that bad?

She couldn't. She was my mother, part of my family. Family love each other, it’s in the job description.

She looked at me, straight in the eye, before nodding quickly and disappearing down the hallway. About five minutes later I heard the shower turn on in the bathroom across from her room.

I sat there for that entire five minutes, and a few more besides. Tears stung in my eyes, but I wouldn’t cry. Why would I cry over family?

Instead, I finally stood up, dumped my remaining milk onto the mass of dishes in the sink thoroughly, dropped the glass in without a care for how it might break or chip of crack, and strode off with a purpose I didn’t possess to my room.

My room, which sat directly between the bathroom and kitchen so I was always keenly aware of what was going on in both rooms, was simple by necessity. I had a bed, a dresser, a small desk, a bedside table with an ancient clock on it. Past the ceiling fan and a couple of science nerdy magazines spread across the dresser, that was pretty much it.

I sat down quickly on my bed, the centerpiece of the room, and pulled out my phone, and clicked around until I pulled up that new contact, for the Ray guy.

I was so focused on my phone and the thrum of the water nearby, I didn’t hear the commotion on the other side of the thin wall. Namely, the noise created by a person slipped through the small, unopenable window in the bathroom, dropping nearly on top of my mother, the sound of her muffled squeak of surprise, then fear. The yet quieter din of the not-really fight to restrain her, then the silent process of something I would personally discover later on. But I do wish I had.

Instead, I was absorbed into the screen in front of me, not noticing the tears flowing freely down my face as I attempted to draft a text. 

Even though it was near one in the morning. Even though I didn’t know what to say, or how. Even though I wasn’t even sure if he was up, would want to talk to me, about this subject, right this minute like I needed him to. 

I still texted him.

And he, by some magical miracle, still responded.

Me  
Hey, Ray, can we talk?


	2. Moving Right Along

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things happen. Read to find out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Double chapters to draws the peeps in. Go wild. Comment, kudos, love me.

Almost immediately, I get a text back

Ray  
Yeah, of course. What do you want to talk about?

My mind stutters. What am I even doing? It’s not like this is a problem. It’s just my mom. 

Me  
My mom???

Ray  
Okay

Me  
She yelled at me, I guess I’m just being stupid

Ray  
Nah man

Ray  
My mom used to yell at me, and I needed to vent every time

Me  
It’s stupid

Ray   
Send me your address and I’ll be over. 

Oh look. It’s panic. Why is there panic?

I send him my address, like an idiot.

Aaida is sleeping. Mother is right there. 

Why am I doing this?

I feel weird. Brave, not cautious. It’s like my anxiety’s been obliterated, or maybe lessened. I didn’t feel that crazy usual tinge through my core when I say that text, but then I hover my thumb over the ‘call’ button, and it comes back just fine.

Yeah, okay, I’m not dying. That’s good.

But I might be, I think as I see his affirmative in the chat.

Some amount of time later (there’s the clock about six inches to my left, but I haven’t looked at it yet. Doing anything but staring at the series of texts marking my maybe-doom and listening to my now empty house as Mother had collapsed into bed a while ago felt incredibly tiring) there was a soft knock on the door.

I stopped breathing, then forced myself to exhale. Another wave of that weird, strange emotion came over me, something like bravery, but stronger, more foreign. I had felt brave before, I swear. But this wasn’t that. This wasn’t me being semi-suicidal, this was about three degrees to the right of that.

I pulled myself out of bed, to my feet. The floor was cold on my feet. The air was musty in my lungs, like old paper, which made perfect sense considering the masses of textbooks hidden in the drawers of my dresser and nightstand. My room was dark, but pleasantly so. Moonlight came through the solitary window, lighting up the room in a soft glow the color of paper, or maybe my skin. The faint taste of that milk was still on my tongue, but just barely.

Okay, I thought as I looked up at the moon, remembering all those tales I had read or heard from Aaida about the old man in the moon and all his daughters, all the random astronomy facts from online and Aaida’s single interesting science textbook. I can do this. This is fine, this is totally cool.

When I opened the door to a mildly stressed boy with rumpled clothes, I realized very quickly this was not fine.

“Uh,” I say as I look him up and down. He looks like he just ran the last five blocks to get here. “Hi? So my mom just yelled at me but damn I said that already okay but she never acts that way, right? Today was the first time and that never ever happens so I’m kinda freaked out and she’s asleep in her room so please be quiet and are you okay and does she… not like me? That can’t be, right? I mean, she’s family. Families love each other, it’s what they do. I can’t hate her, she can’t hate me. Because if I can-”

I stop there for several reasons. One, I don’t know where that train of thought would go. I really don’t. Two, because I picked up on the fact, from this poor boy’s face, that he hadn’t understood a word I had said and I had probably just ranted at him in Chinese, not English.

“Dude, I know like, ten Chinese words, and you only said two of them.”

Ah. Okay. Impressive he knew ten. I wondered if they consisted of ‘’hi’ and like, nine and a half numbers or not like a normal person. 

I blanked a bit there, stood still in the door while my brain did a cold shut down, then recalibrated. Then I muttered out a curse, still in Chinese, grabbed this boy by the arm, and dragged him inside after carefully closing the door.

He walked after me until I sat us both down in the dining room, feeling emotionally unable to broach the Kitchen Territory of the house.

The dining room was also nothing special. A table with about a dozen chairs, a slightly leaning cupboard with a glass front and a bunch of traditional glassware all in neat rows, two windows on either wall where it made sense to put a window. I wondered vaguely how I managed being stuck in this damn place every day, all day, all the time before I threw that thought out. One crisis at a time, and right now my incredible lack of a life could wait.

Also feeling unable to speak to this poor guy, I just plunked myself down opposite to him in the seats closest to the door, both the front and my room’s, and stared aggressively at the piece of wall just besides his right ear.

Neither he nor I know exactly how to respond to this. He, however, was better at winging it than I ever would be. 

“Yeah, okay, so I heard a variant of ‘mom’ in there, so I’m going to assume you want to talk about her,” he says, perched on his own uncomfortable chair.

This was going to be hard to put to English. English was a weird and incredibly convoluted language. Making something like this make sense to the boy might just be harder than figuring it out for myself. But I really do want a friend, and talking about it with someone past Aaida, with both a personal stake and strong opinions with the situation, seems really appealing about now. Weirdly. It doesn't make sense. Normally I wouldn’t be caught dead doing something even close to this… yet something had joined that strange sense of bravery. Something like… a want. For companionship. (is that the word?) 

Urgh.

“Um, yeah,” I say, checking to make sure that came out in English. It did, thank you very much. “God, I’m sorry I didn’t mean to do that to you, it just kind of happened and I’m stressed right now because she never does that, and she can’t really hate me because we're family, families don’t hate each other, that’s like, in the job description and if she does hate me then what if-” I swallow then, still unable to wrap my head around that, to say it out loud.

I took a deep breathe. “Oh, and be quiet. She’s asleep in her room right now. My mom, not my sister. Well, they both are. Uh. Yeah.”

Ray nods, and his face is still with thought, his head leaning slightly back. After a few seconds, he finally says, “I used to be terrified of pissing off my dad.”  
I stare at him. Isn’t everyone afraid of their parents being upset? Why is he saying this like it’s big deal.  
“I have-well, I guess they would like me to say had, but they’re all alive, as far as I know-five siblings. It might be more by now, it’s been a year and a half. Anyway, my dad was a real jerk. That’s what happens in a cult. And that’s what it was-they called it a ‘radical, evangelical, fringe-group’ that ‘wanted to return to the origins of Christianity’. It was a bunch of BS, but you know. Anyway, my dad was a big shot. One of the leaders.   
“The leaders abused the kids. All of them. Usually not sexually, but just about every other way was a routine punishment. And there was a lot to punish for-reading the wrong books, listening to the wrong music, talking about certain things, like cursing. Oh, by the way, fucking hell, dude, do you know how hard it is not to curse at all? Anyway, I used to be terrified of pissing him off. Didn’t know why-all little me knew was that was the regular punishments. But little me also hated them. Happening to anybody, not just myself. It’s actually why I was planning on leaving before I was-um, I was forced out.   
“They call it excommunication. Basically, you’re not allowed to contact any one from the cult, and they’re not allowed to contact you, I’m talking financial support, a kind word, nothing. And every one shuns you. I...really can’t go back to my hometown. And back before it happened, I was terrified of it. I mean, losing my family and going out into this big bad world that I didn’t understand?” He waves his arms in sweeping motions, presumably to include the entire globe. “Nope, didn’t like the idea of it. And while it was happening? It was awful. I had no family support, none of the friends I grew up with, and my education was barely even relevant to literally anything. But after? Man, it was so much better than the best day I ever had in that beautiful hellscape. 

“I’m getting off track,” Ray says, fiddling with his sleeves. “Anyway, I didn’t realise the abuse was abuse. I just knew I didn’t like it. And I avoided it, got scared, hid, whatever. But-uh-God, I don’t know how to say this-I managed to leave, you know? Like, there was another option. And I didn’t hate it as much as I thought I would. It wasn’t...that scary.”

I sat there for a moment. It felt incredibly mandatory that I say something just then. “Um,” I said. “Okay. I guess. I mean- God, right- okay. I know cults are bad. I’m not in a cult. I’m not even in a church. I also know that’s not what I was supposed to get out of that.”

Damn it, Aiden.

Both weird emotions, the bravery, the urge to talk with this stranger I have known for less than a day, surge.

I take a deep breathe.

“Jesus fuck. I understand that emotion. I do. But I’ve got two things to say to that: one, I’m not scared to leave. I went to the coffee shop earlier, and I didn’t immediately run away screaming when someone tried to talk to me. That counts for something, I think. Two: it’s not abuse.”

Ray is unconvinced. Very unconvinced. He gives me a look like Really? Please, go on, in both the most serious and sarcastic way possible.  
“Okay man,” I continue because I’m an idiot. “But it’s not like she hits me or anything so-”  
“My father was the one who loved taunting the most,” Ray says, staring at me as if he’s challenging me to interrupt. “Of course, he did all the fun physical stuff too, but name-calling, taunting, and generally being an asshole was his forte. Hell, I still freak whenever I hear a man shouting. And even if he didn’t hit any child, if he had never placed a hand on any one with cruel intention, that still would have been abuse, because it damaged me.”

I feel kinda deflated now. The weird emotions are starting to override the normal ones not because the weird ones got more powerful but because my usual ones have flatlined. ”Okay,” I say after a minute. “I’ll give you that. But it’s not like she’s even here most of the time-”

“That’s neglect, and also a crime.”

“I couldn’t agree more!” said my sister as she plopped down in the seat next to me, nearly giving me a heart attack as she turned to face me. “Who’s your awesome boyfriend? I want a name, you’re keeping him.”

I was about two seconds away from having a stroke.

Aaida went in her comfortably amazing pose, the one with the hand supporting her head and one leg crossed over the other as she focuses on Ray, the person targeted, with the fire of a thousand suns.

Ray takes this surprisingly well. He probably learned how from the redhead back in the coffee shop. The angry one named Ember. He gives her a nervous yet welcoming smile, and says, “I have a girlfriend, but I’m flattered.”

“A shame,” Aiada says, clicking her tongue mournfully. She’s been trying to grab me dating possibilities since I came out to her (and only her) last year. “Keep going, that was great.”

I look at her questioningly. “It’s 2AM.”

She looks at me out of the corner of her eye with the most ‘I don't care look’ I’ve received since she burned the Christmas Turkey this past year. “One, actually.”

“And you have school tomorrow.”

“Any person that doesn’t pull an all-nighter three weeks before exams is a weakling,” she shoots back.

“You know what? I disagree. On a lot of levels.” I respond with a moderate amount of humour, forgetting Ray is there for a minute.

“And you know what? I don’t care right now,” she turns back to Ray expectantly, who was sitting there watching us awkwardly like he didn’t know what to do. “Please, continue for my thick-skulled brother.”

I sputtered in good humour, and she smirked as Ray quietly started talking again.

“Anyway, I’ve got a very sad amount of experience with abuse,” he says. “And the repercussions of it. That’s why I can only do so much, you know? My education is so limited-it’s why I’m a model and a chef, because people don’t expect you to have a ton of background in it. It’s just passion and a little willingness to learn, when you start out. Anyway, when you’re in a bad situation, it’s hurting you. In ways that can affect you for the rest of your life. And-I-uh, I think...your mom isn’t the best. And it might be better for her...not to do whatever she’s doing for you.”  
“Or lack thereof, but amen,” Aiada says cheerfully.

I was damn close to banging my head on the table. Repeatedly.

Ray just nods at her, a slight smile on his face. “Yeah, so, um,” he says, “If either of you guys need somewhere to crash, I have two couches. And food. Because I’m trying to be a chef. But it’s all healthy, because I’m a model-but-ok, um, and anyway, Onyx-he’s my friend, pretty chill, plays the drums in a band, writes his own music and poetry-his mom became a social worker after they moved here. For kids in the system. So I could-uh, I could ask her to help you guys out?” 

Aaida is more than on board with this. I am more than not. “I’ve got three months befoe I can be this moron’s legal guardian, and about one ‘till I’m done with high school. I got into a big university not too far away, I’m saving for an apartment and school expenses for him. For a special school he’d be able to keep up in, one of those specifically for deyslexic kids.”

I’m beyond speechless.

I’m fucking mortified, actually.

Ray nods slowly. “I don’t think a separate school is necessary,” he says, “Maybe just some tutoring, if he’s struggling. But, uh, until those three months are up, what if I just made you guys disappear? Like, you can go to your school and tell them not to tell your mom where you are under pain of death, they have to take your word for it, I think. And then after the last month of school, you guys can drop off the map until we can get you Aiden’s legal guardian.”  
He pauses. “If you’re both willing to do that, of course.” 

“Of course I am. But, Aiden’s not gone to school a day in his life after Kinder. How much tutoring do you want him to have before his brain collapses?”  
Ray laughs. “You’d be surprised, they waste a lot of time in the first ten years or so,” he says, laughing, “Before you get to high school level stuff, I was able to pick it up pretty quick. And I didn’t exactly have a ton of background. He’ll be fine.” 

“Okay,” I say, instantly feeling bad for butting in but also thinking it necessary before Aaida goes on to sign me up for some club or something. “I have several objections to this. One, you’re not signing me up for some weirdo school, if I’m going to school I’m doing it right, okay? And I’ve been studying your books all these years. I might be farther along in science than most of those losers. Two, I spend most of my time here in this house, you at school, mom gone. Do you know how much not-interacting-with-people-time that is?”

“I have a theory,” Aaida responds calmly. “Too much.”

“Exactly!” I say. “I’m totally unprepared in ordering a coffee! Public school might be the end of me. Special school really would be.”

“Which is precisely why I’m pushing you in there, buddy. You need to learn, or your going to die the crazy cat guy on the block. Which wouldn’t be the worst thing, cats are awesome and all, but I’d rather have you cure cancer or go to Mars, honestly.”

“Three,” I continue steadily. I was on more of a roll than I have in a while. “If I’m going to school, I’m paying for it myself.”

Aaida stops. She turns. She looks at me properly. “Aiden.” She says slowly. 

“Aaida.” I counter quickly.

“You don’t want to go to school. A fast food or retail job, or even both, would actually kill you in at least two different ways even before we get to the massive heart attack slash death by anxiety and embarrassment. And I don’t care about your pride. You need schooling or you’re never going to that far away solar system at light speed, got it?” 

Well, first things first that’s physically (literally. By physics) impossible. Second things second, hell no.

“Aiada, I am capable of taking care of myself-”  
Then Ray speaks, interrupting me. “No one’s questioning that, my dude. And, by the way, you shouldn’t be taking three jobs plus college,” he tells Aiada, “But, like, sure, you can take care of yourself, and of course you could do that, but why do you have to?”

Because I’m a prideful, independent bastard who never needed a stranger’s help. Because I met this man yesterday. (Today? Does one AM count as the next day? It has t been twenty four hours or anything…) Because my life was a mess the minute I was born, and so far everyone, including me, seems to be fine with that.

Aaida was nice. I knew she meant well, was trying to help me, and sure loved me a lot more than the drunk wreck in the next room.

Everything in my brain paused all at once.

I was agreeing to this, on some level. Leaving, leaving all this behind and never looking back. Or at least, never walking back.

I imagined my mother, breezing out of the house for a stressful day of work and ruining her life in bars and clubs. I imagined her stumbling back in here in maybe half a week, to a dark, desolate, dusty house empty of anything that might have been considered purposeful or with any meaning at all. I imagined all the cheap furniture draped in shadow and dust and mold, and I decided I didn’t wish that on anyone. Not even her.

I still couldn’t say that I- ehem, that I didn’t love her. I couldn’t. 

Damn it, I’m probably going through three different kinds of shock right now. That would make sense, wouldn’t it?

I stand up suddenly, and walk to my room. Aaida follows, eventually settling on leaning on the door frame as she watches me search through my dresser and nightstand for an untouched piece of paper.

She doesn’t say anything until she sees me pull out that miracle slip, and understands. “Aiden,” She says finally, like her statement is a fact. “You are the most needlessly compassionate person I’ve ever laid eyes on.”

I grunt as I rummage around for a pencil with both ends working. I find one among the masses on broken stubs on my night stand and start writing.

At first I didn’t know what to put. Not sorry, because I wasn’t, or at least not yet. Certainly not thank you. I’ll miss you? Not by a long shot.

Maybe I didn’t have to apologize for leaving. Maybe I just had to say what I was really sorry for.

Leaving her alone. Never getting her help. Never going out more. Never getting myself help. Never getting a job to support Aaida and I. Never going to school. Never standing up to her, knocking her confidence down a peg. Never looking for my coward of a father. Sorry for leaving her in the dusty dark, potentially for missed electricity bills to come.

Apparently there were a lot of them, so I scribbled them down on a piece of paper and pinned it to the fridge with a particularly resilient thumbtack and a bit of anger, then turned to the mildly surprised Aaida and actually surprised Ray. “Well? We’re going aren’t we? We better, I’ll be changing my mind soon.”

I don’t think I have ever seen Aaida look more like a proud mama bird. 


	3. Dark Fire on the Horizon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First supervillain/superhero appearance! This baby's a long one, so strap in and enjoy!

Ray’s apartment is small but nice. Which is fair, he does live in the actual city part of this place, unlike our suburbs, so the rent must be sky high.  
He ushers us into his house, which is clean. There’s a small room that is half kitchen, half living room, and then also the doorway because the front door is just smacked along one wall. There’s a blood stain on one of the couches, which Aaida raises an eyebrow at. Ray offers an apologetic smile, but not an explanation.  
I look around the room. There’s a small set of windows on the wall on the living room side, showing a view of a wonderful brick wall. A small TV in one corner, turned off. Two couches facing it, along with a small end table with a variety of papers on it.   
The kitchen part is actually pretty cool. It’s small, cramped, and made of disgusting looking materials, but I can tell Ray actually knows how to cook in it. The stove is clean, the counters have a knife block and other useful things on them, and when Ray opens the fridge, I see a ton of raw ingredients, all of which look pretty healthy.  
“Sorry about the stain,” he says, grabbing us some food in tupperware. Under closer inspection, which I am allowed when he hands it to me, right after putting our cat, Mira, down, (she was more than cool with this arrangement. She hates being held. Petted? Sure. Sitting on your lap? Fine. Held? NO.) I can see it’s a mixture of chopped chicken and veggies, covered in some light brown sauce. He gives me a fork, as well.   
“It’s cool, dude, we can just put a blanket on top of it. Hot question, though: is it period blood? Cause if it is, I’m cool, but I’ll probably want to take it instead of Aiden.”  
Ray’s face tightens. “It’s not, but you can take it anyways. It’s the comfy couch, in my opinion. My friend was napping on it and... had a nosebleed.” 

I’m still looking. There’s no dirty dishes in the sink, no broken or burned out lights, no stained carpet with questionable origins. “I’m never leaving.” I mutter under my breath.

“Like hell you ain’t.” Aaida says casually, and I shove her gently into the nearest wall.

I look at the food in my hand. I immediately get something close to triggered with the fact I can’t run my hand over the tupperware when there’s food already in it. It’s a habit I picked up after nearly eating a piece of chipped plate along with my lasagna, and now it’s something my brain has me do before I eat anything, at any place or time.

It’s kind of infuriating. The coffee shop was manageable, since I was confident I couldn’t die by some paper to the back of the throat or anything, but this was different. Plastic to the lungs was definitely something that could do me in, so I was considerably less cool with this than I had been the coffee.

“Uh,” I say after staring for a weird amount of time into the medly’s soul. “You got a plate or something…?” I try to keep my stutter down, but it just kind of came out on the ‘s’ in something. It’s always on the beginning of a word…   
“Yeah, sure, dude,” Ray says, grabbing one out of a cabinet. I take note of where it is for later. “You can use the microwave if you want, too.” He points to it in the corner, despite the fact that I can see it. The time on it is 2:34.   
“Eat and sleep, I’m heading to bed,” Ray says. “There’s blankets in the closet.” He points to a door in the tiny hallway. There’s one that's open slightly to a bathroom and another that I assume is his bedroom. Ray yawns and leaves. 

After running my hand carefully along and over every inch of the given plate, finding no chips, cracks or splinters, I dump the veg and meat onto the plate and start to make use of the microwave.

Aaida is setting up on one of the couches, piling on blankets and comforters and pillows until it’s either a bed or a pillow fort depending on the angle you look at it from. There’s a similar mess of my sofa, though it hasn’t been built up yet. So far, she’s just dumped a bunch of fluff and left to attend to her mama-bird-nest.

I eat standing up, inches from the heated haven of the microwave. I had originally thought it had been takeout when Ray handed it to me, and had been wholly ready to be mildly insulted. I could cook for myself just fine, from scratch too. I don’t need an insult on my ancestor’s culture now. 

But it wasn’t. Tasted like really well-made stir-fry, something I was very familiar with, what with Aaida’s college-student level of cooking skill. He spiced it, too.

I made a note to repay him with food later. Two could play at this cooking game.

I turn around from washing my plate in the sink and putting it back in the cupboard to see a thoroughly cocooned Aaida, wrapped in three blankets so only her head and one arm was left out in the ‘cold’, and a small gap for the other arm to come out too. She was paging through a first draft of an essay, editing as she read from atop Pillow Mountain, Mira purring as she tried to coat her keyboard with her body/cat fur galore.

My sister is perfect in every way possible.

“So,” I say the next morning into a forced breakfast of cereal. “Do I just sit around until you two pull together enough money for some fancy school?”  
“Not really,” Ray says, eating granola and sugar free yogurt with fruit. “You guys really only have to hide if you want. I sent Onyx a text last night about you guys. He said his mom is appealing to get parental rights taken away, or at least so you can be temporarily in the system. What would be best would be if you guys are willing to wait until Aaida turns eighteen, and then we can get her your legal guardian, Aiden. From there, you’re a normal kid.”

I stared at him as if the term ‘normal kid’ is somehow completely shocking. And it is, just, you know, nice to hear as well. 

My heart rate spikes when he says the words ‘parental rights taken away.’ That’s permanent, legal. Running away for a night was something I could patch in our not-really-a-relationship. Getting a stranger to lobby against her rights to her only set of children wasn’t. 

Aaida puts a comforting hand on my back and starts to rub even, slow circles calmingly as she eats her toast. She knows that’s one of the rare forms of contact I’ll allow when I start to freak out, just before all touch goes out the window completely. Mira rubs against my leg, using her Mama Cat Instincts to the fullest.

She seems to think for a minute. “Hey. You think I could get extra time on some assignments if I tell my sob story and the entire court thing to the school? My history essay’s due tomorrow, and I have done zip and nada with it.”  
Ray laughs a very startled laugh. “I don’t think so, but I have become a slight history nerd, so I can help you out?”

Aaida gasps excitedly as I raise my hands in mocking surrender. “Don’t you dare. I’m there for astronomy flashcards, but last time you asked me for help with your English Kings lineage paper, I nearly throttled you. Even when you turned it into a thing of how much of dicks they were.”

Aaida snorts unworriedly, then begins explaining the entire concept of what they were supposed to be doing, the resources she had been given, what she had learned from them, then done her own research, learned from that, and what she was actually going to do with the assignment. (it was a paper on slavery and the different slave revolutions. They were being encouraged to go over one small, rather bloodless one, and instead she was going in full-detail on one of the most graphic ones in all of this nation’s history, then mentioning several different slave revolutions and other such things around the world at that time and how under-acknowledged they are, including the adventures of the greatest pirate ever, a Chinese used-to-be brothel gal, the general Native American plight, all that jazz. It’s kinda the greatest thing ever.)

Apparently, all the teachers at school love or hate her, depending on their chillness levels. And she is more than fine with that, being her cool self. 

Ray almost cried. He got very close. It was only slightly worrying. 

“Right,” he says thickly, “I love you, I love your plan, this is great, I am helping you so hard, c’mon let’s go, we’re going.”

I look at them both, amused, over my cereal. Specifically at my sister. “Well. That didn’t take long.”

I was very smug as she tried to smack me upside the head.

—-

Rays pov

I wonder how I’ll be able to patrol with two teens staying on my couches. I wonder how they’ll be able to avoid their mother for at least a month, maybe three. I wonder if Onyx’s mom needs more information than she has. (Probably.) I wonder a lot of things, which is very distracting when I’m trying to take a history test. 

Honestly, history tests are so stressful. What if I give an answer that isn’t in the history books but is what happened? So basically, I study weirdly hard for history tests, considering. At least I don’t have issues with dates and timelines and stuff. 

I hate history tests, because they are pointless. I know history very well. 

At least I have history last block. After this I will be free. Maybe I can patrol straight after school, and then go home and make up some excuse. Club, maybe? 

Anyway, I do that. I take the history test much faster than everyone else. I sit for a good half hour. I go out and wait until the halls are empty to go up to the roof and change into my suit in the stairwell. 

I would have used the bathroom, but going in normal and coming out Relit would be a little too suspicious. 

Then I go out on the roof and launch myself off a building. 

Halfway through patrol, I see Aaida walking home from school. And she’s definitely spotted me. I normally wouldn’t swoop down unless I was totally sure, but the phone she had out, recording me was a good indicator.

I wasn't expecting her to start apologizing the minute my feet touched the pavement. “Oh, I’m sorry. It’s just my brother’s a big fan and he has depression so I thought something to cheer him up even for a few minutes would be great and I didn’t want to bother you oh god I’m sorry I’ll delete it right now also Oh My God, hi.”

“Hi,” I say, monitoring every word I say and thanking Spark mentally for the voice distorted she insisted on. “It’s okay, I get recorded all the time. I try to come down when I’m not busy to give the people something more personal.”

She looks honored and incredibly happy all at once. “Oh! That’s great! I mean I don’t wanna like interview you or anything but just you saying literally anything not soul-crushing into the camera will probably make his day, if not week so uh-” She obviously wasn’t used to asking for things like this, and instead held her phone back up, presumably waiting for the signal to record again.

“Go ahead,” I say brightly. The adrenaline I always get from patrol is fading slightly, but I’m practically giddy. She presses the button on her phone. I start talking. 

“Hi,” I tell the camera. “I’m Relit. I think you’re doing really well, whatever you’re doing, and that, uh, you need to be comfortable where you are and not sacrifice yourself for others too much.”  
My face scrunches up. “Actually, I’m a superhero, so that’s probably hypocritical of me to say.”

Aaida giggles and I move on. “Right, so, um, I hope your happy and letting yourself grow as best you can, and if you need some help, I hope you have the strength to ask for it and the people to ask it from. And if you can’t remember any progress is progress. Perfection isn’t realistic to anybody, even me.”  
As an afterthought, I add, “And I know that you have a life waiting for you that is really, really nice, as long as you get there and have the want to make it.”

Aaida’s grinning at me from behind the phone as puts it down. “Oh my God, thank you so much, you have no idea. Aiden just loves superheroes and science and your kind of both together with that cool factor because wings, and really thank you.”  
“Of course,” I say, because what else would I say? “Really, it wasn’t a problem.” 

“I know it probably isn’t,” Aaida said with a suddenly earnest look. “But I want to say it anyway, because you didn’t have to.” Then she clears her throat. “Ah, great. I’m still in mentoring mode from my brother, good to know. I’ll get on his case as soon as I walk in the door. I’m sure you’ve got things to do, people to punch and everything. See you around?”

I laugh, thankful I didn’t give myself away. “Yeah, sure,” I say, “Robbers to punch and rapists to tie up. See you around.”  
I wave, turn, and start using the new gloves Bryn and Ember made to scale a building. Aaida watches behind me in mild awe. 

\--- 

Getting home was an experience. I change on a random rooftop, just pressing a button to make the suit go away. (The main concern is always suspicion and people figuring it out, not nudity or anything.) Then I head down the fire escape, which groans under me but holds.

I’m home by five. An hour and a half of patrol, which I can pass off as hang out time with friends. (We are constantly prepared with fake stories, thanks, Shay.) (We are also permanently able to roll with it, stupid.)

The door opens to more yelling than I’m used to. 

“YOU NEED TO SLEEP, AIDEN,” Aaida shouts from the living room, hands on her hips.  
“I NEED TO COOK, ACTUALLY,” Aiden informs her far louder than necessary. I can almost feel my hair fly back with the volume. The cat, Mira, I believe, gives me a look like ah, the last stupid one has arrived. Excellent, he shall now be under proper guidance.   
“Please don’t,” I tell him, walking in and taking my shoes off, “I have enough leftovers in the fridge to live through the apocalypse. Have you seen my variations of mac n’ cheese alone? I could live for a week on them.” 

They both stop and stare at me. I just raise an eyebrow and sweep some papers off of an end table in the living room part of the room. They’re papers for one of my modelling gigs, detailing the company and the expectations and stuff. They could have just sent me an email, but whatever, I guess. 

Aiden points a pair of tongs at me in an almost accusatory way. ‘You made me breakfast! I am engaging in cooking warfare!”

“YOU SLEPT FIVE HOURS LAST NIGHT,” Aaida shrieks from next to the couch where Mira is calmly rubbing against her legs and meowing to be petted.

I read back over the info, just to be sure I have it all down. Never know what job I’ll pick up, after all. 

I also look to see what my newest pair of misfits are fighting over. Aiden has pulled out a fryer, and I see further evidence of cooking activities around the kitchen. The tiny scatterings of flour on the counter near him, the array of spices gathered at Aiden’s elbow, the wrap for some chicken wings and legs I had in the freezer.

Ah, so he’s making fried chicken while Aaida yells at him to lie down. Okay.

“Also, if he has enough cheese-pasta to get a town through winter, he should branch out. Exploring other culture’s cuisine isn’t a bad thing!” he points out defensively.

“Oh yeah, because there’s tons of fried chicken in traditional Chinese cooking!” Aaida says as she scoops the cat up into her arms and passive-aggressively pets her. Mira rubs her face on her chin happily.  
“Okay, I wasn’t sure if he was prepared to go to noodle town, so I comprised! Calm down, woman! Also, what happened to doing that math homework?” Aiden asks/defends as he takes out a crispy-spice covered wing out of the magma-hot oil.

Aaida waved him off. “Busy work. In other news, YOU STILL NEED TO SLEEP, DAMN IT.”

“IT CAN WAIT TWENTY MINUTES. Also, hi, Ray. How’s life going for you?”

Then they continue without letting me speak.

Aaida sighs. “Okay, if you finish your cooking battle and try to sleep, actually try, Aiden, I’ll get a reward.”

“What am I, a dog?” he asks with a raised eyebrow.

Aaida returns the movement, and she does it much better. She smirks, knowing victory has come before she invited in as she fingers her phone case. “I’ve got a real video of Relit talking to me, right here on my phone. I ran into him on my way home and recorded him. Oh, and Ray, if you’ve got enough food for a small army, either give that to a homeless shelter or Aiden’s one really nice friend, it’ll basically have the same result. They patrol the streets and help people out, and runs a clinic where anyone can come in and get medically treated, ask about money later, if ever. They’re great.”

Aiden doesn’t mind the last bit too much. “Okay, rude,” he starts off as he pokes at a stubborn piece of thigh. “Also, I call your bluff, liar.” Aaida taps on her phone screen, and my own voice plays back to her, changed by the mask and giving that oh-so-inspirational speech.

Aiden freezes, which seems dangerous. “You-he-wait-” 

Aaida taps again, and the recording stops. “You get to see it after you sleep,” she says smugly, hugging Mira close to her chest.

Aiden narrows her eyes at her and points the tongs at her, but Aaida remains unmoved. The cat gazes at the pair of metal sticks, unimpressed.

After a moment of not-so-intense staring contest, Aiden huffs, and turns back to his chicken in silent defeat before anything can burn. 

Ten minutes later, he’s grumpily digging himself a burrow under a mountain of pillows in sweatpants, and Aaida is comfortably at the table, making her way through a plate of chicken wings. “No, really,” she says to me as she bites down. “Aiden’s the best at these things. Grab a ton, he made enough for three.”

Aiden  
I woke up groggy, which is to be expected. Most times this happens I would sit here until I drift back to sleep, but that isn’t an option. I’m on high-alert, probably because of the weird surroundings and the possible presence of a stranger. 

I stare at a wrinkle in a fluffy blanket until my eyes start to tingle, and I feel Mira, or I hope it’s Mira anyway, or else one of my roomies got shrunk down to nothing and thought this was a great time to cuddle, shift slightly from her position leaning against the back of my bent knees. It’s a small movement, and I reach down to pet her and let her know it’s alright to move around more if she needs it. She knows I don’t sleep enough, so whenever she joins me in Fluff Land, she’s real quiet and slow, plops down, and doesn’t move unless it’s absolutely necessary. She rubs back against my offered hand, (It is Mira!) then licks it friendlily. I scratch behind one of her ears as I sit up blearily.

I grumble at I scrub at my face, then look around. No one’s in the room, and there’s no light on in the bathroom. I check the time on my phone. 7:46. Ah, Aaida has a study-session for another hour. She was stopping by for dinner, then heading out again. I forgot.

I text her quickly. 

Knight of the Darkness  
Better give me that video

Aaida answers after a few seconds.

Not Really Listening  
I will, chill. Give me a minute

I wait. A link to a video pops up, then a comment.

Not Really Listening  
Slept a whole four hours, huh?

I type back grumpily.

Knight of the Darkness  
Shut up

I click on the link, and there he is.

Relit.

He’s awesome. I mean, he’s got wings. That definitely counts for something. And a superhero? So totally cool.

I listen to about a minute of inspirational speech mumbo-jumbo, but I wasn’t really listening. I was too busy staring, thinking about how it was like this hero was talking to me. Me. 

I smiled as I pocketed my phone. I’d memorize every word he said later. For now, I wanted to go out.

I used to wander the city al the time. I’m not sure if that’s going to be a thing anymore though, but I think I’ll have the time for the next few months. 

I normally I just walk and see where my feet take me, looking into shops and watching people in parks and stuff. Nothing terribly interesting, but it always helped me clear my head.

Yeah, no, I don’t care what Ray thinks, I’m keeping this up. It has been decided. 

I walk for a while after leaving the apartment. Left, right, left again, right twice just because, with a couple of blocks between each change of course. I’m lost and found all at once, and I feel my mind relax. I smile slightly as I finger the wire to one earbud.

Through the music, there’s a sudden burst of sound over the usual horns honking and yelling whatever. Normally I would think well, someone’s losing their mind’ and keep walking, but it’s a different matter when I hear glass breaking.

Normally my fight-or-flight reaction doesn’t get involved, because it doesn’t have to. But this is not normally, I don’t think.

I still. I’ve read there’s another reaction. Fight-flight-freeze. 

My body chooses the third, and suddenly I’m stature-still in the middle of the sidewalk, the sound of glass and metal shattering and bending filling my ears over the hard beat and a soaring guitar solo to the song I was listening to. Now forgotten, I rip the music out of my ears and wheel around in the most movement I’ll probably make for an hour, and see something both poetic and ridiculous. 

There was a man, dressed in what looks like a black trench coat, a white button-up, chunky white gloves, lace-up boots that look like they could survive the apocalypse, and a mask stretching up from somewhere on his chest covering his head and neck completely in purple, lavender and charcoal grey. And his legs, I thought dully as I saw a flash of violet between the folds of black dramatic cloak-y-ness. The entire thing is stitched with a fiery design in black or purple thread, just for extra dramaticness points.

And he was falling from the tallest building in the block.

And he was making it look fun.

The building, on the other hand, was not having a good time. Windows are broken, though I notice all the rooms opened by the demolished spaces are all empty and free of any bodies I could see. There’s a fire in one room, well-fed by a collection of papers in filing cabinets. But the fire looks strange. Like a shadow burning, with colors ranging from the deepest black I had ever seen to the palest grey, almost white. There’s more true black all around the room, but it takes the form of great big hawking lines of rope-ish stuff encircling the entire blaze. People are running out the front door, some looking on the edge of flat-out-terror.

I recognize both the man and the building. The man first: feared ‘Supervillain’ (according to the police, anyway. Surprised they picked up that title, actually) Shadow Fire, (also weird. Given by the media to this strange character in response to his ability to produce ‘dark fire’, as well as summon and bend shadows, turning it solid and therefore, useful) famed not for his publicity stunts like other menaces, nor his boldness, though he definitely has that firmly under his belt, but because of two traits of his: his ruthlessness, and sheer ability to not get caught. He’s on the list for longest-surviving public dangers somewhere in the depths of the internet, a true wonder really. This guy’s been operating for almost as long as I’ve been alive. Most ‘villains’, on the other hand, don’t make it past year one.

And he’s here. In front of me. Well, fifteen feet in front and about seventy feet up, but still.

Next up: the building. Owned by, and HQ to, infamous play-boy and millionaire Christopher Zaney, who is literally just surviving off his late parents’ massive fortune and lives to create scandals for the family line to clean up. Last month he went to court for six cases of sexual assault, and the week before that for freaking robbery, plus your general expected shadiness levels present in companies like his. (All charges dropped, past fines that were minor to him, on both accounts.) 

What does he make?

At this point? I dunno. Last year they came out with a make-up line, and a bit before that they took a swing at cars. (Neither experiment panned out well, it’s safe to say.) 

I could see why this ‘supervillain’ would target him. That’s kinda his thing. He’s a bit of a robin-hood type, actually. Three months ago he was traced back to what was essentially the Underground Railroad for orphans, abused kids, minor homeless peeps and stuff, and that pretty much bought my liking to him right then and there.

He’s still totally scary, though. By now, if he’ll ever get caught, he’ll be charged with dozens, maybe hundreds of felony charges, several cases of murder, (from the sound of it, mostly accidents, or the best end to a bad situation. Once he took down a crime lord and bulldozed the crime rate to an entire sector of the city for half a year. Even now, that handful of blocks is still the safest place to walk at night. He’s got the criminal underworld hiding scared) kidnapping, vandalism, breaking and entering, theft, destruction of private and public property, obstruction of justice and more. 

I watch him fall, back towards the ground, saluting a frozen Zaney, standing with a shot-glass in hand in his pent-house office, a room currently entangled with dark threads strong enough to crack through concrete on all the walls. 

Then something even weirder happens. He twists his body around midair and calls out in my direction, “Hey, you! I know you!” He pointed in my direction just for emphasis, and even that movement looking planned and graceful, somehow. Something like happiness, then calculating concern flashed quickly across his face, and then emerged a versatile grin big enough to power the continent for a week. 

I was stuck in place. My brain was malfunctioning. I couldn’t move. I could barely breathe.

He couldn’t possibly be talking to me. How would I know a supervillain I’ve only ever glimpsed in TV news reports? Let alone well enough for him to react in a situation like this…

That theory dissolved as the figure flipped back over like a cat trying to land on its feet, summoned a wide band of shadow underneath him about a foot in width and a few inches thick. 

It took me the time it took for him to zip down the improvised slide and past me to figure out its purpose. And it took longer still to register when a hand snapped out and snatched the back of my jacket, yanking me after him on his crazy roller-coaster ride.

My body responded only to gravity as he pulled me into his lap with a friendly smile. “Hello.”

It was so simple. But with the Cheshire-cat smile he had, the small phrase was enough to send adrenaline in waves inside my veins and my heart thundering in my throat.   
“Uh,” I say, “Please don’t kill me? Also, I don’t remember or know you?” My stutter was out in full force, and it was hard to talk at all. My body was seized with the incredible urge to just stay still and wait for the danger to pass. The oxygen in and out of my lungs was hard, speech was nearly beyond me.

Dark Fire smiled pleasantly, despite the fact that we’re flying along on a shadow that could flicker out any minute above a busy city street with a burning building and tons of screaming civilians behind us.

“Oh, of course I wouldn’t, I wasn't planning on it. Oh, hold on, will you?” I squeaked and instinctively grabbed onto his coat as we suddenly veered off to the side, nearly slamming into a different building as we did a U-turn and headed back towards Zaney’s growing disaster zone climbing higher into the sky as we went. By the time we were nearly directly above the freaking-out millionaire, we were higher up than at least eight good floors.

I was pretty sure that was a height that could kill me if dropped from here. I was also pretty sure the whiplash from this entire experience might just do me in first. 

“Having fun, Zaney?” Dark Fire called out mockingly to the play-boy as he stumbled back from the window as we started to high-speed ark down to meet him. 

We were going at least thirty miles an hour. I was about to have a heart attack.

“Okay, look, dude,” comes a voice I recognize from the video on my phone, “I can respect not killing anyone, you know, just some property damage. I can grudgingly accept that. But once you start taking hostages, I have a few arguments.”  
I crane my head to see Relit, hovering in place from great flaps of his wings around thirty feet away. 

Dark Fire twists a bit around to face him properly, and the slide dissolves below as he smoothly stands on a summoned platform about two feet square, and he shifts us both around so I’m suddenly being held bridal-style as he talks. “Hostage? I don’t see a hostage. Would you kindly mind pointing them out? I can’t find one anywhere.”

Zaney was making a break for the elevator, dropping his drink to shatter in a mess of amber liquid and glass shards in the carpet. The sparkles caught my attention from my limp pose in the criminal mastermind’s arms. 

I don’t generally like people who drink. Bad memories and everything. But Zaney has a few strikes against him past that. I really don’t blame Dark Fire for taking a swing at this guy. I just blame him for a lot of other things right now.

“Let’s start with the person in your arms and end with the way you’re terrorizing a celebrity,” Relit says, landing heavily and walking toward us with purpose. 

Dark Fire nearly laughed. Then he did. “Celebrity? The man’s a terror. One of his rape cases is a teen mom now, you know? No abortion place would take her. She’s fifteen and already has a newborn. She wouldn’t have made it through high school without that mysterious large donation to her bank account. Managed to snag herself a nice therapist, actually. And this fine man here is hardly a prisoner. An acquaintance, shall we say. We are merely getting to know each other, that’s all.” 

I was thirty seconds away from… something. A panic attack would fit the bill, but I was feeling too calm for that right now. Maybe that’s some form of shock talking, or the freeze reaction, but I just felt so… relaxed. That feeling just before you drift off to sleep, minus the drowsiness. 

I had read somewhere online a bunch of theories about Dark Fire and a couple other people under him in his little gang behind empaths, people who can sense others emotions. But Dark Fire’s paragraph went further. They suggested he could manipulate the chemical balances in people around him, like a magical all-purpose antidepressant. If it was true, it bordered on mind control. 

And right now I was about 87% true they had been dead on. (if is, he should bottle the stuff and sell it. He’d be the savior of the mentally ill) 

I tried freaking myself out, getting some sort of response in my nervous system. Thoughts about my mom in general, getting robbed, never waking up from a nap, the bottom of the ocean, alien invasion, messing up in a conversation, (a direct shot at my anxiety, really) ice cream melting before I could eat it.

Nothing. Nada. Zip.

Well, the response was there, it was just totally being swamped in an ever-growing wave of serenity. The more I mentally struggled, the harder it became.

A mental message floated on the surface of the ocean of tranquility. Go with it, and everything will settle down. You stay calm on your own, I won’t interfere at all. As it is, try not to have a panic attack. I don’t have a prescription on me, and I don’t think the pharmacy would welcome me with open arms at the moment. Or a psychiatrist's office, for that matter.

I’m not sure how I totally got all that. It was like he was speaking inside my head. For a brief moment, I wondered why Relit wasn’t reacting to the statement before I actually used my smart brain and figured it out. 

The two most powerful and maybe-just-maybe awesome people ever (or at least inside the state) were talking over my mental turmoil. 

“Sure, dude, but at least put them down,” Relit bargains. “And then you can, like, run so you’re not captured by the police outside.”

Dark Fire hummed. He walked easily over to Zaney’s office, and plopped me down on the plush carpet. I sunk in up to my heels. “Don’t move, will you? Please and thank you!”

Then he turned around, and said to Relit. “Terribly sorry about this.” As he moved to punch him in the face, or maybe a hit to the side of the head to knock him out. I wasn’t sure. I was busy falling over as my spine bent like a folding chair underneath me, and I fell on my butt on the most ridiculously expensive, soft and delicate floor I had ever witnessed. Ever strand was a different shade in a blue-gold-grey-silver color scheme. It wasn’t exactly ugly, just entirely unnecessary. 

“Urfgh-Cth!” I gasp, trying to straighten. I’m the largest superhero fan on my block, or was. Not witnessing a fight real-time in front of me would be nothing short of a tragedy.

I manage by propping myself up on a nearby arm chair, also ridiculous. It was over-stuffed and roughly the hue of cooling molten steel. Probably worth more than my life, and yet here I was. 

Relit ducked, then threw out a wing to try and smack Dark Fire back as he straightened again. Dark Fire summoned a wall of shadow between him and the feathery blow, stopping Relit painfully short as his wing slammed into the blockage full-force. Meanwhile, Dark Fire was swinging for a kick to the side, while he summoned a bunch of strands behind Relit’s back silently, making to wrap him and up and hold him down. He wasn’t trying to kill him. He was trying to get him out of the way. 

A burst of bright light, almost like an explosion, comes from the burrito holding Relit back. The shadow dissolves, leaving behind one superhero with a slightly ruffled wing. I see one feather float to the floor, snapped in half. 

“Ow,” he mutters, his feathers rearranging as they try to fix themselves. “Wow, okay, that’s broken, cool.”

He stands up properly, spreading his feet. “Just agree to leave, dude,” Relit says, “I don’t disagree, this guy deserves to pay for some awful things. But you’ve dragged a kid into this and you’re about to be caught by the police. There’s no way to win this right now, you can only gather casualties.”

Dark Fire looked tired. Not likely this was taxing him in any way, more like a mixture of annoyed and a big mood. 

He also appeared thoughtful. “Isn’t it fun when things don’t go according to plan? Things go sideways so fast. What makes you think a few egotistical, racist cops could take me down? They’ve been trying their hand at it for sixteen years, haven’t got me yet. Really, I’m curious. And I do hope you realize this is just throwing out the window the physical side of my operations towards this man.” He gestured to the cowering Zaney, who was huddled besides the broken elevator, since it seemed operational, but hadn’t moved past the third floor for the past five minutes. I had my money on meddling shadows in the operating system. 

“Yeah, okay,” he says, “But Spidey is on his way, and he has really powerful puppy dog eyes.”

He said it with 100% seriousness. Somehow. 

Dark Fire actually considered that. He stood there for a minute, then peered over at the street, and the shining red and blue lights in the distance. “Hm. Alright. In honor of the power of the puppy-dog eyes, I shall take my leave. Take care of those wings. I’d be a real shame for them, or you, to be hurt. You’re such a rare person, I acknowledge that,” He looked Relit in the eye. “Treasure it.”

He snapped his fingers, and a person appeared behind him. I recognized them. They were Dark Fire’s walking get-away car. He could teleport, and always seemed to be nearby to Dark Fire.

He was as pale as me, and somehow had darker hair. Tall cheekbones, lanky, average height. Dark eyes, small mouth, prominent chin. 

He grabbed Dark Fire by the back of the arm, and they were both gone.

Relit walked toward me, his hurt wing held up at a weird place that didn’t look comfortable. “Hey, are you okay?” He asks, stopping as he got three feet or so away, not even glancing at Zaney.

“Are you?” I asked, looking at his wing. “Is it broken? Oh, God, I’m so sorry. You’re hurt and it’s for me and you didn’t have to do that man and oh my god, Relit, uh.” 

“Hey, it’s fine, you’re fine,” Relit says, “My wings break really easily. And they heal fast. It’ll be fine within a week.”

“That doesn’t make it better!” I protested quickly. 

Damn I didn’t know how to set a human bone, let alone a giant bird wing attached to a person. But I wasn’t just going to walk off now, so…? 

I would need to either be a vet or a doctor to pull this one off, and I was very firmly neither.

“Okay, look,” Relit says, hands out placatingly. “Super Shock and Starlight both have to deal with this a lot, so I can get this set in around ten minutes. No big deal. Right now, I’m more concerned over if you’re hurt.”

I didn't quite know what to say to that. My body currently felt like it was made of marshmallows and adrenaline, so I took the sarcastic high road. “Physically, metally or emotionally?”  
Relit rolls with this. Which is unsurprising; there’s videos that I’ve watched that are just his little superhero team bantering. It’s mostly puns, actual directions, and jokes, along with references to various pop culture topics. “How’s about all of the above?”

“Well. Physical is hard, because I’m probably in three types of shock right now. Uh. Emotions are hard man. Shock covers emotions, right? And mentally? Yeah, the supervillain wasn’t the one to take a hammer to my mental state. In short, I’m probably fine for at least five minutes or so. And I’m also about 89% sure Dark Fire never like, purposely hurt me so, uh, yeah…?”

“Okay,” Relit says slowly. I can tell that he’s still processing. “Can I drop you anywhere?”

My first instinct if home. My second instinct is that that’s a bad instinct.

“Uh. Yeah. I’m rooming with a friend in their apartment could you…?”

“Why does your wing vitals say you managed to break a fudging limb again?” 

I spin around almost as fast as Relit does to see a very pissed Super Shock standing where a wall used to be. She has hands on both hips and is spitting mad. 

I shrink into the carpet on instinct, bad memories of the last time an important in my life woman was angry at me bouncing around my brain. 

“Do you know how hard it is to set that stupid bone?” she asks, “Your fudging osteptero is not made of steel.”

I knew how to react to this situation. At least, I think I do.

However, my not very smart brain does not.

It had decided the best course of action was to attempt to magically become one with the floor, and, rather predictably, it wasn’t going too well.

“Okay, but in my defense-it was Dark Fire,” Relit attempts. 

“And he famously doesn’t hurt anyone!” Super Shock yells, advancing on us. “And you still manage to break something! Let me see it, you feathery imbecile.”

Wow. That was a line so Aaida it almost physically hurt.

She takes Relit’s wing, having to get on her toes to do so, and gently guides it down until I can see the way a bone has yanked itself out of place so badly, it’s on the cusp of ripping through the skin. Super Shock takes this in calmly before looking Relit in the eyes and saying, “Babe, this is going to hurt.”

Babe? My stupid brain asks. Then my logical brain smacks it upside the head and asks it what it thinks that could possibly mean. 

Then she snaps the bone into place with a quick movement. Relit inhales sharply and then breathes out slowly, swaying on his feet slightly, his hands curled into fists.   
“I’m fine,” he responds to Super Shock’s worried looks. 

Super Shock turns to me. “Are you the hostage Relit called in?” she asks me gently. 

Speech is physically beyond me at this point. I think if I opened my mouth right now the produced sound would be closer to a whale/fangirl’s mating call. 

I run through the chances of these two knowing ASL and decide to take a bet.

Yes. No yelling please. 

Sorry. Guilt, Super Shock signs back smoothly. Hurt? Pain? 

Which kind? I reply, not sure if the sarcasm will carry through and not really caring I was using to same joke so soon. 

Then,

Body. Good. Him?

Sun fine later, Super Shock answers me. 

I give her a look like later?

Then I internally sighed, preparing to accept my fate and ask for a ride to the apartment and my waiting couch.

That was the moment Dark Fire’s little dark haired accomplice of a getaway van popped into existence behind Ray’s broken wing. 

He looked ten times more tired than he had five second ago, perfectly matching my general mood. 

Super Shock stares at him like she can’t believe he’s such a big idiot. “What are you doing here?” she asks, still facing me presumably so I can read her lips. 

He doesn’t respond, at least, not to her as he mutters about idiots and wings and fistfights and walls as he ran his hand gently over Ray’s hurt wing with delicate long fingers. 

Ray does not move. I do not know if this is because he is too scared to attempt it or if it’s such a weird experience that he’s just rolling with it as not to hurt himself further. 

He found the injured spot through the bad looking lump it had created and made a sound like an angry cat. Then his hands did this weird glowy thing like the ghost of Christmas past on a bad hair day. It literally looked like the physical version of grumpy, somehow. A mixture of red, black and strange navy-gold that blended but also didn’t all at once.

I heard a sound like a mixture between a crack and swoomp and suddenly the wounded area was gone. Totally gone, just like that.

I gasped like a moron as this miracle of a stranger turned a critical eye on me.

My body froze up again, which was beyond annoying. 

He scanned me for something or another, then did something between a snort and a long-suffering sigh. 

And with that he was gone, taking my sanity with him. This left the shell of a functioning human being behind in a slightly crispy building occupied by one asshole millionaire, two superheroes and a lot of screaming people.

Joy.

On the other side of the city, waiting for his annoyed little teleporting friend to return, was a man known to the public as Dark Fire. He was standing (well. Stood. He stands in the same way someone lounging is sitting.) under the awning of an abandoned bakery, reflecting on just how good their donuts had been. A real shame he hadn’t trampled the crime rate sooner, or they might still be around. As it was, land value was looking good, and several people had made offers to buy and make the place their own. One especially young hopeful was searching to set up an authentic Italian pizzeria, which the man was more than happy to give him a shot at. 

“So should I start signing adoption papers ahead of time? You know I like to be prepared.” Came the mildly whiny voice behind him.

“Jiri. Hello to you too. And that won’t be necessary. Even if was that way, I wouldn’t go for the paperwork side of things.”

Jiri, a comparatively small male next to the masked man despite being only a bit below average height, snorted. “Sure it isn’t,” he tipped his head back as he sighed. “In other news, we have things to actually be doing, Dee.”

Dark Fire, or Dee, short for Demetri, resisted the urge to dramatically gasp in mock surprise. His friend had just saved his bacon, now was not a good time to get either of them fired up.

Instead, he smiled with a knowing happiness he wasn’t faking in any way. “Business time. Your favorite.”

Jiri stuck out his tongue at him in response, then teleported away briefly to grab a clipboard and papers from wherever he had left them, and since this only took a moment Demetri had to give his brain a second to process he had actually been gone.

“Ok, show time. I’m assuming we will be making a mysterious donation for one very certain teen’s bank account?”

“Two, actually,” said the semi distracted super villain as he fingered the material of his coat. “I should get a top hat. Do you think I should get a top hat?”

Jiri waved him off. Fashion wasn’t his arena, never would be. He was wearing a T shirt and jeans for a reason. “Fine, sir. What else, pray tell?”

“How well is that shelter illegally taking in minors doing again?”

Jiri gave him a look like you think I can’t anonymously fund a shelter on my own? “Just fine, sir.”

“Sir,” murmured the man annoyedly. Far too formal in his opinion, but he wasn’t about to say anything to his friend/practically younger brother. “Make a donation anyway. Anonymous, the usual. How’s 911 doing? The education system?” 

Jiri gave him a long look. “Terribly.”

Demetri raised an eyebrow. “Which one?”

Jiri continues to look him in the eye, not looking down as he wrote out a full essay on some official looking paper. Demetri clucked his tongue decidedly. “Right. Onto single handedly funding two government systems, then. How’s the Railroad holding up?”

Jiri looked proud of something as he scribbled out a checklist on a spare sheet of crumpled paper. “Wonderfully, sir. We found a new home in Georgia, they were willing to take in five kids. We’ll be monitoring them for some time just to be sure, but I do have high hopes for this one.”

Demetri nodded, then groaned suddenly. “What, have I been demoted from nickname status?”

Jiri smirked at him. “That what happens when you’re an idiot. With what money again? I can’t imagine the crime rate would do any more miracles if we take out another gang.”

Demetri eyes glinted as he flicked an imaginary top hat he was definitely getting later. “Depends on the gang. Anyway, just how pretty are today’s one percent sitting again?”


	4. Having A Fun Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Struggling with gender, Zaney attack aftermath, some fluff because I am soft for my characters, and a Green Goblin n Spidey drop-in. 
> 
> Guys this work is kind of me just thinking up fun ideas and writing them down. The plot is next to non-existent, but I hope you like it anyway. Have fun with our friendly neighborhood Spider-Bro.

I woke up the next morning feeling about as good as I had when I had fallen asleep. Relit has gotten me home, which would have been awesome (you know, flying and everything) if my nerves weren’t so fried. Relit hadn’t questioned my camping out on someone’s couch status, just flew off again. I kinda stared at the place where he had hung off the building by the windowsill like a moron for a while before it occurred to me I should probably get ready to sleep. 

Grimacing slightly at that memory, I shifted under the comforting pressure and warmth of the blankets. I wasn’t sure if I was even willing to get out of bed today. Running through the list of things I had gone through recently, and what was probably waiting for me with my luck, that kinda made sense.

I groaned into the overstuffed pillow when I felt a foot in my side. “Aiden, I know you just woke up and everything, but also it’s ten and you need to eat.”

God, ten? Since when did I have a functioning sleep cycle again?

I wanted to move to roll over and dramatically glare at her, but I also didn’t because that was a lot of work. 

I had slept like the dead for a long while, I could do it for a bit longer. Or maybe I would just slowly inhale my pillow, I hadn’t fully decided yet. 

Aaida prodded me again, and I groaned into the nearest blanket, pulling it over my face.

Aaida sighed semi grumpily above me, a bit to my right. “I did not make my own syrup for you to sit under the blankets. I’m chill with you escaping from the world, just as long as it’s after breakfast, okay?”

I considered this. Eating didn’t sound great, but also not terrible. And Aaida was a bear when you didn’t pay attention to her struggles and achievements and things. She’d take my head off later if I didn’t get up, and for what? To be lazy for a few hours?

I forced myself to move, just first my hand, then my arm, pulling myself up a bit. Working myself up to it.

I threw one leg over the edge of the couch and sat up suddenly, before I could change my mind. 

I looked at Aaida. She probably looked a hell of a lot better than I did. She was wearing a cropped black and white checkered jacket, a white button up, and light-wash jeans leading to incredibly spotless cream ankle boots. And I said, “You made syrup?”

My voice was exactly as surprised as I was. Aaida didn’t cook, or at least not like that. She made ramen and box-mix pancakes, and that was only when we needed it, not homemade syrup. Or anything.

She snorted at my comment. “Uh huh. Now get up. I don’t care if you get dressed, just sit down for me, will you?”

I nod sleepily and yawn the way Mira does when we interrupt her precious naps.

Aaida nods with a look that was surprisingly cheerful and went off to presumably murder more whatever goes in syrup.

I heard Ray moving around in the kitchen, probably cooking more mac n’ freaking cheese.

I’m never eating mac n' cheese again as long as I live.

I turn my head and confirm both theories. Aaida is bustling around the kitchen while Ray is simultaneously cooking and staying out of her way. Looks like some sort of desert, whatever he’s trying out. 

There are three places set at the table. Bit of a late breakfast, but whatever I guess. 

Did they hold off on eating just for me?

I shake that thought out of my head as I stand up and shuffle over to my designated chair at my place setting.

I looked over. Ray was huddled over a pan at the stove, and I didn’t smell eggs. Pancakes, then, if Aaida was telling me the truth and just didn’t want me to get moving. 

I register the drone of the news on in the TV at my back. “-The recognized supervillain Dark Fire is suspected to be behind the hack after his attack yesterday on Zaney Company Headquarters-”

That got my attention. I whipped around to look at the screen, where a serious looking news anchor lady in a blue blazer was shown at a plain desk. She appeared to be taking out the camera man’s soul with her gaze as she spoke. “Authorities tell us it is possible the hack of exactly 20 million dollars from Zaney Company could be an act of aggression from another party. However, due to the usual signs of Dark Fire in the computer code, they believe it to either be him or a copycat.”

The screen cut out to a still picture of Zaney HQ pre Dark Fire to spice things up, presumably. I spot Ray, frozen at the stove, which seemed dangerous.

“Along with the normal signs or the public menace, including several instances of the name being edited into the code, and the back door the hacker entered through to access the money quote according to Chief Scott of NYPD “practically lined with neon landing lights” there is also an interesting addition that has Zaney’s entire tax history over the last two decades. As police quickly discovered, it had some interesting sections. For that, we turn to Chief Scott.”

We flipped over to a video of a man in an officer’s uniform on the sidewalk. “Well, according to my guys in the computer crimes department, it’s some pretty damning stuff. One year he didn’t pay almost two mill dollars in taxes, with no consequences at all. As far as we can tell, this has been going on for something like thirteen years, about when the current CEO took over the company.” The cop’s short dark Afro curled majestically on top of his head as he talked. I silently wished I had that hair texture. Then I thought about the amount of work that would take, on top of your inability to own a hair brush. Maybe I didn’t after all. 

His skin was pretty dark, blue-black actually. I wondered how long he had worked there.

Maybe I had a shot at a job like that.

Then I remembered the fact that I haven’t had any sort of schooling since I was a tot, and went back to blankly listening to the news.

The camera cut over to a current day of the Zaney HQ, which was indeed just a little burnt on top, with a crowd waving protest signs. So far my favorite was the one that read pay up, dumbass in red sharpie. 

Zaney’s office was totally empty. I guess the protesters were just trying to make a point. Or maybe draw attention. Either or.

“Well, not anymore,” continued the news lady. “The scandal has attracted a range of notice, leading to protests that started around midnight last night. The millionaire himself has refused to give us a statement, but announced publicly that the given statistics were entirely false, and he is a law-abiding citizen.” The last sentence came out with a hint of suppressed anger, and I reflected on just how many times I had seen the headline ‘Zaney Goes to Court.’ 

Ray has a very fake laugh right now, I learn. “He deserves that,” he mutters, flipping a pancake. 

“Agreed,” I told him as Aaida set down a cup of tea in front of me. I sniffed. More orange. Eh, anything but green.

I recalled Dark Fire yesterday, something about only stopping the physical side to things. I saw his point now. I wondered if Relit had heard the news, and how he was reacting if he had.

Dark Fire did that, both parts. The hacking and the planning. He preferred physical attempts, obviously, (he’s very extra if you couldn’t tell) but he also wasn’t afraid to jump onto the computer and tell every secret the government ever had. (Hasn’t happened quite yet, but I have faith) 

He had a lot of plans from the sound of it, and towards a lot of people. He wasn’t always taking down awful people, some of his work could actually be considered a charity cause, or supporting one that already existed. 

He vaccinates willing kids from deadly diseases, gives abortions to moms and kids that would die otherwise (and in other conditions too, he isn’t heartless) helps out the homeless, supports the arts, especially ignored artists, has several programs to help save the planet from burning, and there are several times where he went head to head with another supervillain and a hero at the same time.

He’s kinda awesome. By far my favorite ‘bad guy’ and the heroes seem to agree. Most other big baddies would have been decked by Relit and Super Shock, but he basically gets a free pass every time they meet. And the general ‘oh no he’s getting awwaaayyyyy’ thing. 

I pulled out of my trance as Ray put a plate of two whole pancakes in front of me, and Aaida dumped a bunch of fruity smelling syrup on there for good measure. 

I tentatively sliced into the nearest fluff cake and took a bite.

My eyes widened at the taste. Not the slightest bit burnt or undercooked, and it sure didn’t taste like the boxed stuff. “Where have you been all my life?” I asked Ray jokingly as I inhaled a few more mouthfuls.

Then Ray cleared his throat awkwardly, and I suddenly had the urge to dive back under the covers.

“Um Aaida?” He started out carefully. He seemed so nervous. “Can I ask you something?”

She was totally level headed. “Shoot.”

“Okay. Are you a girl?” That weirded both me and my sister out. Isn’t that the second most obvious question to ask someone, past whether or not they breathe oxygen? 

Aaida looked down at her chest as if to check. She has sat down with me to eat. Ray was still cooking. “Imma girl, man,” she said, a little bit hesitant now. 

Ray turns around fully. He waves his spatula for emphasis as he talks. “No, I uh-I don’t mean-like not body wise-“ he says, blushing intensely. “I mean like, are you trans? In any way?”

We both visibly blanked. I knew some people were born in the wrong body or whatever, but what did he mean by in any way?

Ray turns off the stove and puts down his spatula. 

“I mean, uh, I’m not transphobic. At all. Three of my friends are trans-oh god, I’m that person,” he says. He pauses a minute to take this in, and then nervously continues. “Anyway, you’ve, like, dressed really variably day to day, and I know this is just me making assumptions, and if you’re not and you just like to swap it up, that’s cool too, but-uh…”  
He trails off as if his words drowned in the awkward along with his dignity. 

I stand up. “I’m going back to bed.” I was not prepared to deal with this on any level.

Aaida grabbed me by the wrist and forcibly pulled me back into my seat.

“Dunno,” Aaida replied, leaning back in her chair a bit. “I like different clothing styles, and sometimes I feel… different on separate days of the week, so I dress to show that. But I still feel kinda like a girl even if I’m in like a button up or something, and I feel kinda like a guy, if that’s even possible, in a bodycon. Never thought about it. Or knew that was a thing, actually.” 

Ray locks his lips and shifts from foot to foot. “Hold on,” he says, scrabbling for his phone in his back pocket. He pulls it up, clicks around for a few seconds, then hands the phone to Aiada as it starts to ring. 

“Hey, sunshine boy, you’d better not be dying,” comes a female voice. I immediately wheeze into my plate in laughter. Aaida swats me. The contact is ‘starry eyed’, which doesn’t help identifying her.   
“Hey, Star,” Ray says, “I was wondering if you could explain being more than one gender to my friend? Like, you’re female and non binary, so I feel like you can do better.”  
“Dude, how much time do you have?” Star says. “You’re pretty much asking me to just describe everything about me.”  
“Basics,” Ray amends. “Please.”  
It takes almost an hour of Star ranting at us for us to vaguely get it. She covers pronouns, trans rights, hormone therapy, binding, dysphoria, a few of her own experiences when she gets off topic, defines transgender, different identities like gender fluid and non binary, and so on. 

At this point I’ve finished eating and have been giving Mira cuddles for the last ten minutes. I never asked, but I guess Ray was cool with having a cat in his apartment. I also happen to be debating escape tactics to get to the bed and be able to be lazy for just a few hours. I didn’t feel like a person enough to actually live the day. 

Aaida was three kinds of shell shocked, but having oodles of confidence I will never have, managed to ask this mysterious Star person for a meetup later, maybe a coffee chat?

I snicker into Mira’s side, knowing Aaida’s undeniable liking of girls, which I was fine with, considering I have never dealt anything remotely that way forwards a girl, ever.

“Yo, Ray, is your library of knowledge friend single?” I ask to him, just to save us all a lot of time either way.

“Yep,” Ray says, “Why?”

God, he’s so unassuming.

I hug Mira a bit closer. “No reason.” 

Aaida smacks me on the shoulder, and I stick my tongue out at her. 

“Uh. Call me a girl for now I guess. You going back to sleep, Aiden?”

Whoop. I couldn’t lie here, she’d know in a few hours.

So I just shrugged and carefully selected my following words. “I’m just going to stare at the blankets, I think.” 

Aaida gave me her like hell you are look. “Mhm. No way. We’re doing a spa day!”

I blanked once again. “Uh. Don’t you have school…?”

Aaida snorted. “One, it’s Saturday. Two, it’s eleven o’clock. If I did have school right now, I’d be three hours late and about halfway through digging my own grave by now.”

Eek. I was in for it.

She grabbed my hand casually and made for her suitcase, starting to rummage through probably looking for something. “Hey Ray, you got any beauty stuff laying around?” 

Ray doesn’t look up when he says, “Concealer in the top drawer, I might have something in your guys’ shades, there’s the bath bombs Petal got me, it’s not like I’m going to use them, she also left me a whole ton of makeup and makeup supplies, along with a few bottles of nail polish. That good for you?”

“Cool.” Was all Aaida said, pulling out from the depths of her entire wardrobe a small mesh bag stuffed with nail polishes, glittery layers and all that, some face and lip masks.

She towed me over to the bathroom (“Tile is much easier to clean in case of volcanic emergency.”) and took out five different bottles of polish.

“You good with me doing your nails?”

So simple. I had never done anything more than hack my fingers into grudging submission, something more did sound nice… but also… ah, and all.  
I took a deep breath. “Yeah, yeah, sure.” Aaida smiles encouragingly and focused in on my hand while I examined her supplies.

Three shades of dark blue, one silver, and one gold. The silver looked metallic, and the gold had little glittery bits in it. 

I allowed her to pull my hand over the sink, wash it carefully, clean the edges and everything up a bit, and then took out a little tiny sponge, dipping it into the deepest shade of blue. She dabbed carefully on the upper half of my nail, trying not to smear or get too much on my skin. I watched in mild fascination. “Since when did this become a thing?” I asked as I noticed her mint chocolate chip nails for the first time, complete with the top of an ice cream cone at the ends and covered in rainbow sprinkles. 

“Since like, two months ago, keep up.” She said into the bathroom counter as she squinted at my problem child pinkie. 

I hummed as she prepared a slightly later shade of dusky blue, almost indigo. She layered it on top of the first shade so they kinda of blended, kind of stood out at the same time. She did the same thing for the last bit of blue, having completely covered each nail. Then she took out of shade of deep dark green, and shoved my right hand under a portable heat lamp while she copied her work on my left. She was totally silent while working, and she made this weird little face with her eyebrows and the corners of her mouth as she glared intensely at her newest project.

Aaida was intense in everything she did.  
Absolutely everything.

She took out a brush about the size of a toothpick (I’m not sure how it didn’t snap inside that stuffed bag of hers) and jammed it into the dark green, coating about half of it in pine needle coloring. 

Then she carefully made sure to get at least three drops of varnish on the counter and started to make little lines and dabbles up near my cuticle. Two minutes later, a dark tree line adorned my nails. 

I barely breathed as she sliced out of thin crescent moon, then dotted everything that wasn’t green or silver in glittering gold. 

Another few minutes under the heat lamp, and I had a little forest scene at the edge of dusk, trailing off into a dark summer night.

It was beautiful.

I kept touching my nails as if to check they were still there. (I promise my sister didn’t steal my nails and hold them for ransom, brain)

Aaida smiles, and went off to make another pot of tea after wrapping me in a cocoon of blankets on her couch with only my feet and face exposed.

She handed me a cup of chamomile ten minutes later, and started work on my freshly washed feet. (“God, what happened to your cuticles?” “My what?”)

After carefully cutting and plenty of swearing, she looked up at me. “Okay, fingers are both hard and easy design wise. One, you get to make everything really pretty, but two it’s got to not be totally jarring or anything. However, you wear sneakers, so we can do whatever we want on your feet and no one will ever know. Waddyou you want?” 

I thought. “Um. Could you do like, Mira on my big toe on one foot and a dog on the other? And like, textures on the rest?” 

Aaida’s eyes lit up, and I felt a burst of pride at my idea. Also, cats.

I’m definitely a cat person. Or just a chill fluffy being person. 

“Oooh, good idea! Trying to do fur’ll be fun! What dog breed? Or like, cartoon?” 

“Cartoon’s cool.” I replied, enjoying her big ‘ol grin spreading across her face as she started digging through her supplies. 

This was actually fun. I started composing a way to ask to do this next week or something in my head. 

Could I just throw it on at the end and make my great escape? Nah, that’s weird. Probably work it into the conversation and either depend on her to bring it up again or immediately agree, then move on ASAP.

Yeah okay. That could work. What conversation starter…? What opportunities to look for? 

“Hey, is that okay? I’ve got remover if you don’t like it.” I looked down. Aaida was still smiling a bit, which was great. She had done the dog on my left big toe, and it was pretty much three light brown circles as the face and ears and some cutesy facial features in black and red. I smiled just a little and wriggles my right foot a bit. “It’s perfect.”

By the time she was done, I had wolf fur, Dalmatian spots, and a golden retriever and spotted coat on my left foot, and tiger stripes, leopard print, calico, black with some fur texture, and a tiny little Mira on my right.

It was glorious. 

We were both beaming as she wrapped up my feet to go make sandwiches and cocoa, from the smell of it. I would have a feeling she would make me shower soon too, which wasn’t terrible. I liked being clean, it was just a lot of effort. But for now, it was nice. Relaxing.

Well. That is the point of a spa day, isn’t it?

“Can I do yours?” I asked as she stirred some milk and cocoa powder on the stove after a few minutes of agonizing over how to word it and such.

“My nails? Sure! Well, maybe not a freehand design like I did, but there are plenty of awesome pattern you could try! Hey, you want extra chocolate in yours?”

She knew me so well. “Yep.” I said as I wiggled my toes, already enjoying our beautiful little secret even as I tried not to somehow get them smudged or chipped.

When she came over, she had grilled cheese for her, a grilled chicken with veggies she had managed not to completely mess up, and two cups of hot chocolate. One was loaded down with whipped cream, one had a small island of sprinkles forming in the middle, and I caught the mob of a marshmallow as she set it down on the coffee table.

I knew which one was mine right away. I grabbed the creamy one and took a sip, probably creating a fine mustache as I smiled appreciatively into the rim of the mug. 

Aaida threw herself into the other side of the couch so the entire thing squeaked and bounced a bit before settling down. She took off her blue-lined socks and put her unpainted feet directly into my lap. She leaned forward to grab something from her bag.

“Okay,” she seemed, taking a deep breathe for her likely lengthy lecture coming. “I’ve got some stamps that come with patterns on them if you wanna do that, or we could try your hand at freestyle. Free hand is harder for obvious reasons, and for the stamp you just put some color or colors into this tray here,” she held up a small metal tray about the size of her palm “and press down for a while so it soaks it up. Try not to drip, and don’t move too much when you put it on the nail. You wanna try that?”

I nodded and took the metal bit from her hand, then started looking through her bag for a good stamp. I found one with a nice diagonal zig zag design I liked, and pulled it out, laying it on the couch for later inside a small nest of blankets. 

I squinted at all the colors she had. There was everything, some shades I wouldn’t even know how to describe or blend with others. Some were metallic, shiny, glittery, matte, plain, you name it.

I finally reached for a deep red color, since that seemed pretty normal. What went with red? A sparkly orange and matte electric yellow followed the red into my hand.

Okay. A bit bold. But it would be awkward if I put them back… and bold pretty much described Aaida half the time… and they did all seem really pretty…

Okay. I could do this.

I was barely breathing as I poured the polish delicately into the pan, then settled the stamp inside so each color equally covered it.

I then carefully brought the stamp over to my sister’s left big toe and pressed gently. I held that for a few seconds, and when I lifted it away a brilliant fire esque pattern remained.

I did it. And it was so well done. I barely got any on her skin at all.

Huh.

Nine painstaking repotions later, a surprisingly patient Aaida smiled as she carefully hugged me positioned in a way to not make my work damaged.

I love my sister. This was what love was, I thought. Not whatever had been back at that house, as much as it ripped a hole through my heart to even think that.

I love my sister. A lot.

The next week passed peacefully. Aaida dropped her second job after much convincing to focus on her much-preferred position decently high up on the ladder in a small clothing boutique nearby. She also dumped a whole bunch of new studying books after finishing a school project on NASA’s latest misadventures just for me. (I only helped out in around 80% of it, it’s fine) Meaning I had a whole treasure trove of new things to geek out about. (A picture. Of a black hole. What.) (with quotes from real professional science peeps!) 

After that she took me out on a clothes-buying spree at said boutique. (“I work there, Aiden. I’ve got like a million favors saved up from the owner, we’ll get about a half a dozen discounts, it’ll be great.”) (“I’m down with you dressing like Mortician Adams color wise all the time, but at least have some style with it, will you?”)

That mainly resulted in some cool scarves (infinity scarves for life) and some new jeans that actually fit. The owner even gave me an embroidery laden motor jacket she herself made as a gift, though she wouldn’t tell me for what. It was great, with a bunch of stars and moons sparingly on the front and the back had actual constellations and planets all over, with the Milky Way in the center. 

I was going to wear this thing threadbare, if not out, then at least munching my way through Star Trek reruns. 

Aaida dragged me out of the store halfway through thanking her so we could grab a late lunch at a Korean BBQ before heading back for the apartment. 

The next three days after that, the remainder of the week, was spent paging through old textbooks, new science magazines, and new recipes to try out. (The cooking war’s still going strong.) 

Then a supervillain (a different one this time) went flying through Ray’s window. 

I had been innocently reading in my blanket nest, perfectly fine and having a very normal time of things.

I shrank away on instinct when the sound of breaking glass filled my ears Ii dropped the space magazine in surprise when I saw a very green body land on the floor maybe four feet away from me just in front of the window, covered and surrounded by broken glass shards.

I sat there, bug eyed, for a split second. My brain did not physically know how to handle this. 

Then the not-dead body moved, and every instinct I never had kicked into high gear. 

I scrambled off the pull out and ran to the other side of the room, just beside the front door. But something made me pause with my hand over the doorknob, and turn my head back a bit.

Cursing my curiosity, I turned around.

The villain, the infamous Green Goblin, was standing… kind of. He generally looked like he had been hit my truck. The metal corners to his devil mask were dented out of shape, he was covered in debris and dust, glass shards totally coated him from head to toe, which must have been painful, and his stance was similar to that of a near black out drunk alcoholic. 

My phone was out snapping a picture before the other side of my brain could stop me.

I flattened myself against the wall as the Goblin snarled lowly at me, inching my hand back towards the doorknob, and my escape. 

“Hey Spidey, hold him still before I kill him!” A familiar voice yelled from outside. My body froze up again all on its own as Green Goblin looked me right in the eye.

“I don’t take orders from emo supervillains!” Another very, achingly familiar voice called out. But who?

I felt like my brain was on partial shutdown. It was weird, like my thoughts were just rattling around in my head with nowhere to go.

Ray isn’t here. He’s...out. Somewhere. He keeps disappearing, so I guess he has a life, unlike me, and I can respect that. It’s why if he doesn’t volunteer information, I don’t press. Another reason is the fact that I’m living on his couch. 

Aaida is at her job. At the boutique. Probably freaking out at the news footage. 

Also, are we talking about killing me or the Green Goblin here?

Then my brain loaded as a red webbed face perked down through the wrecked window.

Oh. Spidey. Spider-Man. Duh.

And the other person… my brain went back on shut down as a purple mask with the collar of a trench coat joined Spider-Man.

Dark Fire.

What?

Green Goblin growled as he turned around, and was immediately decked by the other villain.

“Not that I wouldn’t love to web you two up together, but I can’t get a shot at him if you’re trying to bash his head in.”

Dark Fire grunted, then looked up. And saw me.

“Hey, nice jacket!”

He launched himself up and to his feet, and just as he landed to Goblin’s right, a long stream of white webbing hit the green man, effectively pinning him to the ground by most of his chest and arms. 

Okay, cool. One less threat to my long-term health, that’s lovely.

Dark Fire had a big smile as he focused in on me, like that totally hadn’t just happened.

Ah. Ah. Ah.

Help.

“Hello! You don’t happen to be hurt anywhere, do you?”

Ah ah ah ah.

I was either gaping or had lost control of my jaw. I wasn’t totally sure either way.

What? He was a supervillain? Why was he being a compassionate person on any level? 

Speech was one again beyond me. I didn’t know if my tongue would ever work again.

“Uhhhhh.” Was really all that came out, though it may have sounded more groan-y to them. 

Now that I think about it, my body is stinging all over. I look down, and I can see that the layer of glass shards has cut open any skin it was touching, especially in my hands and arms. 

“Uuhhhhh.” 

Brilliant, Aiden. Just brilliant.

Dark Fire crouched down and snakes his hand over to Goblin’s face, who immediately tried to bite his fingers off. He clamped his violet cloaked hands on his jaw powerfully to lock it in place. His other then moved to allay over his forehead, forcing it down onto the ground. 

In another second, dark tendrils of black curled from his fingers, swirling around midair in a strange way that clearly defied gravity in every way but one and a half, before dropping like a lead balloon onto Goblin’s forehead. It pooled a bit, but before it could spill off the struggling man’s head, soaked right on through the skin like water through a cheesecloth. I gaped silently as Spider-Man spoke.

“Oh my god, he is! You need me to call some- what are you doing?” He turned his attention on Dark Fire halfway through his frantic exclaiming.

Dark Fire was totally calm in comparison. He was now sitting casually on the floor as he did some funky shadow stuff to Green Goblin. “Anyone could survive a few glass cuts, no need to call an ambulance.” He replied sweetly as he sprawled out luxuriously over the carpet. 

“Yeah, okay, chill man, but what are you doing, man?” 

Dark Fire was partially immune to Spider-Man’s more insistent questioning. “Rewiring his mind,” he said casually. “Terrible case of DID, used to be known as multiple personality disorder. Truly murderous second personality. Why do you ask?” 

I stare at the Goblin. 

Spider-Man looked ready to either start shrieking or shake Dark Fire within an inch of his soul bleeding out of his nose. (Which of them that would do the bleeding is debatable, at this point) 

Maybe it would be me.

Then the front door opens. Ray freezes, a backpack strung over one shoulder and keys in his other hand. He might have been studying with friends or going to some club after school. 

He slowly closes the door behind him, looking first at the Goblin, still webbed to the floor, to Dark Fire, still mentally screwing with his DID, and then to Spider-Man. He puts his bag down on the counter in the kitchen, because everything else is covered in glass, and then grabs the Mrs kit silently, starting to pick glass out of my right arm.   
“Hi,” he says, “I rent this apartment. Am I responsible for the broken window?”  
“You’re young,” Dark Fire notes cheerily. Ray eyes the way he’s making sludge doing something to Green Goblin’s face.   
“I’m legally emancipated, I can rent apartments,” Ray says defensively. Then he looks back to me. “You’ll be fine, I just have to pick all of this out.”

At this point I would probably be fine if someone busted a chair over my head. I had partially checked out like I did when things got bad back at the house. I felt like my soul had left my body and was halfway to heaven, which honestly wasn’t the worst thing ever. 

“The window,” Ray implores. 

Dark Fire grunted. “Give me twenty four hours and it never happened. Hell on ice, give me one.”

“Uh,” Spidey says ever so smartly, having about as much fun and mental functioning as I was.

Ray was taking bits of glittery glass out of my right arm. Nothing terrible, my legs had been protected under the blanket, I had been sitting so my elbows and wrists had been protected (lower chance of permanent injury, whoop) and most of the window had turned to more of glass hunks before hitting the carpet and breaking rather than bunched of small projectiles that then came for my awaiting arms. 

I was frankly more worried about the circus of weirdness happening in front of me than I was the inconsequential amount of blood I was losing. Pain didn’t really exist to me right now, either, so I was set for another ten minutes or so before I headed straight for a full breakdown. 

Then Dark Fire pulled out something mystic and bad-looking laced with shadow from The Goblin’s head, and that number ticked down to about five.

He threw the jello-like blobby mess straight out the window with a flick of his arm, and then had what appeared to be a black hole eat it before the entire thing disappeared before my eyes.

Three. I could feel the anxiety levels rising in me, kinda like a more annoying version of blood sugar. 

“Hello, Osborn! Feeling up for a court case?” Dark Fire asked brightly as Green Goblin, or maybe the apparent other personality, tried to raise their head. Less forceful now, more confused and tentatively.

Osborn’s reaction was something between a ‘huh?’ and ‘uuggghhh.’

Ray glances up. “Don’t sue him immediately, and how would you even do that as a public menace?”

“Who ever said I’d be the one suing?” Dark Fire asked, grinning happily. “The feds’ll probably get to him first, with a few anonymous tips. He’s killed people, you know.” 

Ray gave a tired sigh. 

My raging anxiety and massive curiosity were duking it out in my head.

On one side, this was a potentially lethal situation, nothing more to it. On the other Spider-Man and the city’s equivalent of a serial prankster who occasionally commits arson and or theft were collaborating???? Why, how, when, how long??? AWESOME. FIND OUT MORE.

Needless to say, curiosity won out. I was now a semi functioning anxious wreck with a mission: interrogate, then nerd out.

It was a very simple, dangerous plan.

Perfect, at least for one side of my screaming brain.

“Uh,” I started out carefully. I still had some base instincts rattling around somewhere inside me. “Why are you two working together, again?”

Spider-Man seemed to be mostly made of panic by now, so Dark Fire was the one to answer. Curses.

Or victory. Depends on who you ask.

“We aren’t. Or if this counts, only briefly. I had actually finished planning… something else, and happened upon a fight between these two.” He gestured gracefully with one hand to both Osborn and Spidey. “I had actually been looking for the murderous bugger for about a week, so it was a package deal, really. Terribly sorry about the damage, by the way.”

My mind spun in circles as it processed all that.

“Cool, cool,” was all I got out in reply. “I’m, what exactly did you just- black-hole-ify, exactly?”

“The other personality, Green Goblin. He’ll still need a damn good therapist, though.”

“That’s great. How, exactly?”

Dark Fire didn’t answer. Or react at all. He just stood there, looking at me, head slightly tilted to one side, and breathed.

That was exactly enough for my frayed nerves to snap, but Ray has me covered.

He made a sign with his fingers and flicked it at him before continuing picking glass out of my arms.   
Dark Fire squints at him, and places a hand dramatically across his chest. “Did you just ward off evil in my direction? Did you just call me evil?” He looked like he couldn’t decide between being amused, insulted or delighted. 

“Okay,” Spider-Man said suddenly as he shot out another web to connect him to Osborn. “So, I’m going to take big baddie here to the nearest station, and you’re going to get out of these nice people’s home.”

Dark Fire looked at Spidey for a minute like who said I took orders from you? Or anyone? shortly before he seemed to decide if there was anyone to take orders from, it was this guy. 

“Yes sir. And get ten hours o’ shut eye tonight, or I’ll stalk you for a week.”

He was gone before poor Spider-Man has the time to yell at him.

Or panic. 

I think I have that covered for the both of us, or I will real soon.

Then Spider-Man took that second to apologize to us, then get the hell out.

Ray shook his head after him, snickering a little. He quickly stops and moves to my other arm to start getting the glass out of it. 

“I’m going to have to replace that window, huh?” He says, clearly asking me to respond. 

I nod slowly, apologetically. I sure didn’t have the money to cover it.

“That’s okay, I guess. I always set aside money from my paychecks, because they’re not as steady as I’d like, from the modeling gigs.”

I think on that. I had never been inside a middle or high school: any sort of science-related job was far out of reach. I was probably going to be in a similar boat to him in a few years.

That made my heart hurt a bit. For both of us.

Ray must have caught the look on my face. “Hey, it’s fine. I can cover the window.”

A knock sounded on the door just beside us, four light taps that barely moved the wood at all.

I blinked. Neighbors? We had just made enough noise to summon Satan, I wouldn’t be surprised.

Then a deep voice called out: “Window repair.” 

I blinked again, this time under an entirely new emotion. Ray goes to the door and opens it for a thin guy wearing jeans and a tee shirt with Jhon’s Window Repairs on it. He’s holding a duffel that’s zipped up. I’m surprised his voice was naturally that deep, but whatever I guess.

The guy steps inside and surveys the room, quickly finding the busted window.

He walked over carefully, stepping around glass shards and one giant slab of unbroken window, and set the duffel down. He unzipped it to reveal a massive new pane and piles of screws and screwdrivers. He took out the glass and cautiously put it in place, then screwed it in. That done, he produced a brim from the depths of his Mary Poppins bag and started to clean up.

Several moments of total silence later, we had a clean carpet and a new window.

The guy closed his bag, stood up straight, and walked right back out the front door. 

He hadn’t spoken a word then entire time.

I closed the door after a few seconds and stared hollowly for a good while. Then I sighed. “I’m making myself a cup of tea. When do you think Aaida will get back?”

One cup of steaming orange later, I was sitting on my newly glass free couch, sipping on the liquid sweetness, when the door slammed open hard enough to give an elephant a concussion.

“What the hell?” My battle-ready sister yelled through the doorway. I looked at her over the rim of my mug. 

“Two super villains and Spider-Man, that’s what. There’s a new pot of tea on the stove if you want some. I made orange again.” I retrieved my magazine from where it had hit the floor, trying not to spill my precious tea.

Aaida did a three sixty just to be safe. “So… I don’t have to punch someone?”

I slurped because I could. “Nope.”

“Preferably not.” Agreed Ray from the kitchen, where he was stress cooking. (Is that a thing? I think it is. Or maybe he just invented it.) 

After a bit of stressed heavy breathing, I grabbed her a tea and we settled down for a relatively normal end of the day.

Aaida and I fixed each other’s nails before bed.


	5. Dark Fire is Only Slightly Creepy, But It's OK

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So Dark Fire is kind of doing the villain thing, he and Aiden hash it out a bish in a dark alley, and then proceed to go party. 
> 
> I love my children.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for not updating for so long. I got hella sick and got a bit of writer's block of top of it. Long chapter to make up for it, though at this point loooong chap boys seem to be a trend of mine. Anyway, enjoy!
> 
> (pls comment.)

I go walking for two hours every day for the next week. I clear through several books, find a new artist to listen to, keep updated on every news report on Dark Fire just in case, and generally try not to completely break down at any point in time. 

Recently DF hasn’t done much. He must be busy with his newly audited stolen funds, I guess. He turned all the lights on the Empire State Building purple the other day, and yesterday brought a shadow-flaming Statue of Liberty, making for some awesome tourist photos on the internet. I think he’s hooked himself up with some sort of professional painter, or someone amazing with a can of spray paint. And who isn’t afraid of third-degree burns. 

This year's Christmas cards are going to look freaking awesome, in any case. I think Aaida’s collecting snapshots.

Besides that, Dark Fire’s been quiet. Ray’s news channel, my new favorite TV program, is low key freaking out. A few minutes ago, the Blazer Lady commented that some millionaire was most likely days away from being hit by a metaphorical truck, and I couldn’t agree more. The last time DF dropped off the map, it was for six months right before a string of high ups in an oil company got the life sued out of them, got their funds funneled into homeless shelters and such, and went to jail for some crazy number of years for everything ranging from actual slavery and payment under the minimum wage to small health code violations.

The entire city was waiting on some high up getting the shit kicked out of him. Most of us couldn’t wait.

I got anxious at blurry snapshots of the guy, but his pranks were nice, funny. There were memes online I was using to get myself desensitized to myself, between science nerding breaks and Star Wars marathons. 

I was having yet another walk (so fascinating to hear about, I know.) when someone grabbed me by the bag of my new jacket and yanked me roughly into your stereotypical dirty, dark, one sided alley.

Inside was your stereotypical thugs, in nondescript hoodies and jeans and whatever. (not a leather jacket or ripped tank top to be seen thankfully) (plenty of scruffy beards, though) (why not a single lady thug? Why is every stereotype criminal sexist? Why, America?) They had these shiny handguns they had probably gotten from Walmart or something, and probably at least a few knives tucked away somewhere.

I was pretty hung up on the memory of the last time I was pulled along by the back of a jacket of mine to fully register the weapons for a good few seconds. 

By then, it didn’t really matter anyway.

“You have a talent for getting in the most unique situations, don’t you?” Called out a deep voice from behind and above me, but then not, like the person speaking was moving quickly up, over my head, and then down to land somewhere in front.

That is exactly what happened just before Dark Fire in all his lavender, flaming glory collided with the nearest thug, the one who had nabbed me. I stumbled as the strong grip was ripped away by a yet stronger one (plus gravity and such laws of physics, let’s not forget them) before catching myself on your stereotypical grimy brick wall. The rough grip bit into my palms, and I knew they would be bloody soon. 

I couldn’t care less.

I looked up hurriedly to see DF in a full-on brawl with my would-be-muggers. The man that had been the one to touch me, wearing a dark grey hoodie now stained red through the hood, was on the ground in a heap. I didn’t think he was breathing. The lavender-clad-menace had long since moved on, since he was now halfway through strangling another thief while simultaneously elbowing one that had tried to hit him in the face.

Oh god.

The body refused to leave my line of vision. Neither did anyone else present, actually. But the dead man most of all. 

I watched, once again frozen (this is getting tiring) while the supervillain easily took down petty criminal after petty criminal with the extraness only befitting the goth peacock I was sure was his spirit animal. 

In short, he did a whole lot of backflips and stuff. He almost looked like a ninja in a bad, karate-themed film.

Except, you know, wearing a top hat and trench coat and all. 

I gaped like an idiot as he settled back down, both feet in the ground seemingly completely unscathed, and pretended to adjust his stitched-on hat with graceful hands.

God, this man could be the best ballerina in the damn world.

Or I guess, as he had chosen, just about the coolest supervillain ever. 

“Hurt at all? I would feel simply terrible if I had to care of any hospital bills. Check yourself over, will you? I can’t imagine you’d let me get so… friendly.” He spat out the last word with a malice that was very much not directed at me. I wondered how often something like that happened to him, or someone near him.

You really only hate something like that with some sort of personal attachment, and a big one at that. 

Huh.

I mechanically move my hand over my chest, gingerly on the bandages arms, my perfectly fine legs, and hands. Nothing but a bruised neck, really.

And a slightly freaking out subconsciousness, but that’s not as important.

I shook my head dumbly, and he smiled encouragingly in response, clapping his hands together. 

“Lovely. Got anything they would have knocked missing?”

I knew the answer to that one without having to check. I was broke as a joke. “I don’t have anything valuable, on me or owned.” 

Dark Fire smirked. Gods above, how was his mask so expressive? “Check your bank account. Anyway-“

Right then my brain loaded, and fired off a question before I could stop myself. “Are you stalking me?”

His head tilted to one side a bit. “Depends on what you would call stalking, I suppose. I hardly watch you every moment of the day.”

I had a few responses to that, none of them smart. 

So, I went with the most obvious: “But… you can’t do that!”

More head titling. “Why ever not? Well, the creep factor I suppose. I’m not watching you sleep, that’d be boring. I’m checking to make sure you don’t stumble into a potential massacre, as you seem to enjoy doing. Would you rather I use a drone?”

I thought of the whispers of constant drone attacks in other countries, and swallowed. 

“No! Just stop following me!” Please. I was getting a bit desperate, and panicky. 

And also a bit in the oh hell no mood, but we don’t speak of that.

Dark Fire centered his head again, face suddenly unreadable. “Done. I’ll never stalk you ever again, if you promise to no walk off a bridge while you’re not paying attention, yeah?”

Relief swamped me. “Yeah, sure, whatever. Just don’t do that to people, man.” I wondered what he meant about my bank account. Did I have a bank account?

With that encouraging thought, Dark Fire jumped, gripped brick wall with surprising dexterity for such a big guy, and climbed over and out of sight with a speed rivaling that of Spider-Man’s. 

Holy hell.

I did indeed have an account. An account that currently held a figure with more zeroes than I could easily count. I wasn’t sure I even knew the name to that number. 

I was curled up on my couch with Mira, Ray out somewhere again, (lucky bastard with his active social life) while Aaida was dressing up to go somewhere, probably a party from the looks of it. She was in a white tee so far, with a cheetah print jacket with fluffy black ends around the wrists and neck, and was digging through her certifiable jean collection for something to match. I peered over at her halfway out of amusement as she squinted at a pair of charcoal, black and white pants.   
“What happened to my bank account?”

She muttered something, angry at not me, but the pants pile. Even knowing this, and knowing my sister would never intentionally hurt me at the cost of throwing herself off the highest building she can find, I still flinched a bit at the tone she used when she gruffly responded. “You don’t have a bank account.” 

That’s what I had thought. Mother certainly never took me out to the bank to set one up or anything. But then if Aaida hadn’t made it, how…?

Oh.

Oh.

Would Dark Fire not only fill a bank account for someone, but go so far as to create a whole new one if one wasn’t available? And for no apparent reason in the first place?

“Apparently, I do, and it’s full, man.” I show her my screen, and stares for a few seconds at the crazy number, before I withdrew my phone again and she leaned backwards back into her.

She was gaping like a fish, exactly what I was doing inside. 

She blinked a couple times. Then, “Damn it, you’re not legal to drink.” 

I run through my limited knowledge of American laws. “Are you?” 

She shrugged like it either didn’t matter or she just didn’t care. 

I was so confused.

I nod slowly, “Right, okay. So… we can move out?”

Aaida seemed to be loading, eyebrows scrunched up too far like they always are when I scare her or she’s thinking. “We’ll have to shop around, but with that kinda money, yeah, probably. I mean, I’m going out, so you can look up stuff while I’m gone. Oh hey, you wanna come with?”

I had been to one of her parties before. It had been different from what I had read in books and stuff, maybe because she had wanted to impress me. She had found this mixture between a bar and an arcade, (“barcade, Aiden, it’s a barcade.”) which I must say was pretty cool. I nabbed a bunch of sodas and bonded with a small group of nerds for about three hours while Aaida and Friends has an awesome time I didn’t want to be a part of on the dance floor.

It had been pretty nice, just not something I actively wanted to do. Still, it hadn’t been that bad and I hardly ever went out with her…

“We going to that arcade place?” I asked tentatively, then basked in the way her face lit up as she finally chose the black jeans.

“Yep! Well, barcade, but-!” She didn’t finish her sentence, momentarily too elated to speak. She danced around a bit as she fought her way into the jeans, then turned to me with a grin.

“You going to wear just a hoodie? Nah, where’s your jacket? You got any non-logo tees? Those jeans will work, nice fit and everything.” I was wearing your usual ripped black jeans, but whatever. 

I pointed at my bag and she immediately descended, quickly finding my embroided jacket, then dig for a bit to find a plain grey shirt. She threw them at me, hitting me square in the face and neck. “We’ve got about ten minutes before we gotta go. I call the bathroom!” 

She snagged her makeup bag, a non-see-through one beside the manicure one, and was in the bathroom before I could blink.

I tugged in the shirt and jacket after a few moments. I guess a night of classic games and good fizzy drinks couldn’t be all that bad. 

Especially when the person that looked back at me in the mirror looked like that.

The barcade was set up so the nerd section was immediately in front of the door, probably so people would spend a bunch of money before going off to finish off their drunk, fun evening. I was glad for this arrangement since crossing a room full of loud music and louder people to go play virtual go karts seemed like my own personal hell. This way around, I could just hunker down in front of a screen and ignore the stream of annoying people as they went past. 

The place was set up real nice. One floor building, with bunches of exposed brick and pipes and things, and a big ‘ol stage at the very back, a massive bar that took up almost the entire wall to the far right. Giant colored lights hung from the ceiling in a variety of colors, from blazing indigo to throbbing red. Gold disco balls have a glittery appearance to everything on the giant dance floor, which was just a big cleared space away from the tables and chairs outlined in railings and glowing spray paint.

I had Aaida grab me a non-alcoholic drink, then set to work destroying some rando at digital war.

Yeah, this wasn’t bad at all.

“Woah, dude. How’d you do that?” Someone asked from behind me as I jammed at the control panel to execute a backflip in order to avoid enemy gunfire.

I look briefly over my shoulder to see a girl with killer eyeliner and a beautiful silky green hijab behind me. I could work with this.

“Slam a bunch of keys down and pray. Want some?” I offer her a spare soda can, which she takes and promptly chugs.

Hell yeah.

“I’m new at that one. Better at racer games, ya know.” I nod. I definitely had more practice there, but war games were just so much more exhilarating. It was my dream to play some superhero game with great fight scenes and greater graphics. 

“Same. You ever try a team round?” I gesture as I purposefully die, damn my high score to hell, and the multiplayer option pops up.

She shakes her head. Jackpot.

I set up a team round for me, I Am The Night, (“I’m Aiden, by the way.” “Nashua. Call me Nim, please.”) and her, Queen Awesome the First, as Nim takes a seat in the second seat beside me. 

I concluded this place was awesome as the loading screen, a cut action screen, really, popped up and Nim ordered way too many sodas and a pile of fries from a passing employee.

Nim spent a few minutes customizing her avatar to be as close to a war queen as a newbie could, with golden-silver plate armor (modern, to her distaste.) and red, green and blue accents everywhere she could fit them. I of course had mine already set up in full black spy gear with an anime scarf that looked like a woven galaxy from a side mission that looked a bit like a cloak if you squinted real hard. 

After that, me and her were off.

Nim was the best shooter I had ever had on my team, and after a few minutes I was damn glad I wasn’t on the other one, even with the lack of stamina and slow reflexes. A girl who could hit a tank from damn near the other side of the map with the right gun was my new favorite person ever in any circumstance remotely similar or not to this one.

I also learned Nim had a tendency to yell at the screen when she got angry, and really could not read the room. I vowed to never team up with her in a stealth game for anything but laughs and ignored my phased left ear. 

I did a lot of moving around the map and mugging people, which was fine by me. With a few strategic snipes and sneak attacks, we were well on our way to victory, and I had five friend invites lined up in chat. 

I accepted the one from Nim quickly, then didn’t spare the rest a second glance as I tried to stab a ninja guy on steroids, or the equivalent. 

My sister checked in on me fifteen minutes, two victories and one saddening loss later. “Wait, my anxious little bro made a friend all one his own? By what miracle?” She draped herself dramatically in the seat on my right just in time for me to slug her lightly on the shoulder and receive a high-five from Nim. 

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.” I grumbled as I waited for Nim to finish up revamping her character so we could play one last round and move on to trying to outrace each other in some twilight-lit virtual hellscape. 

She laughed and stole one of my precious sugar waters, prompting me to gasp in mock surprise (saw it coming a mile away, and she’s not the only drama queen in the house.) as I plucked hers out of her hand and took a swig before handing it back. Cherry soda filled my mouth, and it wasn’t detestable. A true shock. 

Aaida pouted but decided that was a fair compromise before oohing and aahing at our characters. 

I had added a Jedi hood to mine, because why not? Demon wings with spikes, folded at almost all times against my back, too. 

It looked random, but awesome.

Then I saw Nim had a crown.

I had learned very quickly that no amount of trying would let me outclass her when she didn’t want to be, so I let it slide.

“Hm. Bonding over games?”

“Duh.” I gave her my best obviously look, and spied something over her shoulder. A person, which frankly shouldn’t be all that shocking, except for the surprising fact I actually knew this weirdo.

I squinted a bit like a blind cat until it clicked. It was Coffeeshop Guy!

He was out of businessman mode and fully ready to party. He was in a black button up that was somehow made of leather, tight fitting jeans in the same shade (the struggle of getting them to match is real, for every outfit on every goth) with a sparkly purple tie tipped with yellow, a glittering golden belt, and black and gold trainers like a thunderstorm.

God, he looked more awesome than all three of us put together. And like he was trying concerningly much. 

I did like the tie, thought. And any custom shoe was automatically the coolest ever upon making.

I flashed back into the conversation as Aaida fired back. “Oh yeah, because you make loads of friends all the time, right?”

She turned to Nim, leaning back to look past me. “I’m Aaida.”

She gave a short nod. “Nim. Don’t worry, I’ve got your idiot covered. Go win a dance battle.” Aaida laughed, clapped me on the shoulder to congratulate me on finding such a winner, and went to probably do just that.

And I went back to shooting random NPCs in preparation of getting wrecked at snowboarding or something.

We left about two hours later, a little bit before an hour short of midnight. I was on enough of a sugar high to mow down every video game villain ever, but Aaida was shockingly enough just fine. “You a heavyweight or something?” I asked her as we set off for a nearby bus stop my phone said would be around in about ten minutes. 

I had better things to worry about than her taking a couple of shots.

“Eh. I’m no Viking, but I do pretty well in drinking games I guess. That plays was pretty full for a weekday.”

I snorted. “I wouldn’t know. Need me to do your nails tomorrow?” I had a feeling she’d want to go to bed more than sitting up into the night letting me paint on designs, so we could postpone anything like that until the next day. Definitely not now.

She looked at her hands. Most of the ice cream cones were pretty much gone, and we were missing some detailing.

“Yeah,” she groaned. “Uh, now I have to think of something else to put on.”

I smirked as we walked under the overhang at the stop. “Oh, the pains of a creator.” She shoved me gently as we sat on the bench seat and began to wait. 

Demetri (Dark Fire) POV

I hadn’t been to a party in a while, let alone at this spot. I suppose my other life had kept me busy more recently. 

The barcade was shockingly full, which was fine by me. I could deal with the emotions of a crowd better than my colleagues. If anything it felt a bit like a drunk buzz, not at all unpleasant.

For good measure, I shouldered my way over to the bar and ordered something that sounded tropical. I’d probably have a headache in T minutes a few hours, but it would be worth it to feel normal for the night.

The drink tasted like straight Florida, with a hint of whiskey. I nibbled on some pineapple that had decorated the side of the glass as I watched the dance floor from the vantage point of a table at the edge of the room, against the wall.

They had even turned the disco lights on. How lucky of me.

I wondered if I should go make my feet bleed dancing and risk ruining the drink, or head over the arcade part of the barcade and risk ruining an entire expensive machine.

I snorted at the image of pineappley syrup mixed with electric sparks and compromised. Which meant I chugged Florida and hit the dance floor.

Jiri wouldn’t be joining me on a count of the crowd, and the only way I would see any of my collected introverts would be in the arcade, which wasn’t exactly my scene.

I was alone, and free to lose my head just a little.

Some number of hours later, I was pleasantly drunk and with aching feet, sitting in the corner of the room with yet another drink, this one tasting of raspberry and gin, watching the dance floor and the lights and thinking.

Maybe I should have had hit a gay bar instead, but this could work.

Uh, I could have been the knight in shining armor for a lesbian. Tomorrow, then, even if Jiri will hate me more than all the paperwork he’s doing, poor sod.

I rolled the drink around with one hand. I had seen Aiden, of course, when I had been going in, but I was keeping to my word. I wouldn’t stalk him or do anything of the sort. However, I never said anything about anyone else. A few friends taking turns on watch was well within our agreement. 

Hm. Did financial support count as stalking? I supposed I could look up the definition, but that seemed like a lot of work. Maybe later.

Okay then. He didn’t mention his sister at all, let’s move on to her. Average grades, and I don’t blame her one bit for it, and aiming for top colleges like everyone else. She had a chance with the high marks from teachers and her selected extracurriculars, but it would help to get a boost. Bribing was at least two inches below me, so that was firmly out. A recommendation, then. But from who? How many chumps could I gather up in the med industry to sign some paperwork without giving baby Jiri a heart attack?

Also a thought for another time. Ugh, being normal was hard.

I admired a passing young adult, maybe a college student, with choppy died dark purple hair and a beautiful sparkly crop top. I recalled Jiri had been watching documentaries about medical stuff recently. Could he give me a suggestion? Possibly. That was nearly always the case. The latest one had been about the insulin cost crisis, and I could just tell he was going to badger me about it. Then Mr. Computer Genius would egg me into doing something stupid and I would have a fun afternoon and possibly be home in time for dinner. I was not opposed.

I smiled into my glass and absorbed the buzzy happiness of new love while a couple with a pair of mystery gendered people passed, happiness and warmth shooting off them like sparks from a fire, mixing with the thundering anticipation throughout the room just before the bass dropped in the music. I loved my life.


	6. Stalkers Gonna Stalk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So Aiden uses his smart brain to figure out he's not totally alone while Dark Fire reviews his life choices.
> 
> Do you guys want to for the plot:
> 
> Mirror something in the MCU (pick a movie, any movie!)  
Give me a prompt  
Or give me some new characters to pop in for funsies

Aiden POV  
I woke up the next morning to Aaida turning on the news at full volume, meaning noon was my time to get up. It was the weekend, but she was out on a coffee date for a while soon.

Meaning she wanted me to get my life together long enough to survive the day like, now.

I groaned into the masses of pillows and sleepily scratched at Mira’s ears as she attempted to claim Mt. Pillow as her own. 

The news had something on about Dark Fire again, no surprise there. At this point I was half expecting some famous millionaire to flee the city, maybe the state. God, I loved Ray’s news channel. It was sarcastic, let the anchors dress as they wanted and had an entire section devoted solely to superpeople antics. Mainly, Dark Fire. 

“And in the Super Corner!” Came a Testosterone Male Voice accompanied by a goddamn air horn. “We have! A thiiiiinnnggg!”

He cut off his tone suddenly as they planned over to his very much nerd body. “Mainly, you know, the robbery our favorite firey menace had going at some ungodly hour. What was it? Three? Three forty-six, folks, the hour of the devil and justice. Okay so he basically hijacked a truck from a megacorp that had a butload of insulin in it, but I don’t have a feed to show you, so you pan right in on my beautiful face.”

He was skinny with a magnificent flaming ginger mustache and dark purple hair, lounging in a classic black skinny villain chair with a pair of sequined combat boots on his desk, snarkily chatting away.

“So we don’t video because for once he was very undramatic about things. Probably because he was too sleepy from waking up dark o’clock, but anyway. He just knocked out the driver, placed his own guy, and kept driving. So instead of that video feed, Imma show you this one by some gang I don’t remember the name of last week!” 

I sleepily propped my chin up on a pillow to get a better look, since I was too blurry-eyed so far to get up. 

The screen cut to a vid taken on what must be a heavily shaky cellphone, showing a black van screeching down a street at about one, since I could clearly see the sun, followed immediately by at least twelve police cars and a lot of sirens and yelling. 

Huh, that happened. Okay.

I wondered what DF would do with the meds. Judging by his brand, he’ll probably hand the stuff out like candy then go back for more. There’ll be a whole black market set up overnight, I imagine. 

Cool.

I rolled over when Aaida prodded me with one slippered foot and hit the ground heavily. I groaned into the carpet while she wafted the smell of some tomato soup Ray had made in my general direction.

Damn, now I have to be productive and make freaking noodles. From scratch. Why does the universe hate meeeeeeeee.

“Alright, sleepy-head, I’m out the door in ten minutes meaning you are getting up and you do not have a choice in the matter.”

I rolled/flopped over in order to properly glare at her. 

Then I squinted. “You’re going for coffee at lunchtime?”

She snorted. “I’ll bring you a pastry, now get moving.”

I groaned again, and petted the ruffled Mira, who had rode out my graceful descent on the fuzzy blanket partially wrapped around my shoulders, partially thrown across the couch/bed/nest. 

Aaida was in style, as always. She was in a metallic silver flare skirt with a high waistline, a cream-colored crop-top, silver hoop earrings and what I guessed was a traditional hair-style-bun-thing finished off with flower-pattern-engraved-chopsticks. She had on her cream combat boots, too. She really was getting ready to ditch me. 

“God, did you wave me with tomato air with a freaking towel or something?”

She raised an elegant eyebrow. She had on lipstick, which never happened. Or maybe it was a pink lip gloss. I didn’t really know the difference, despite me experimenting with eye stuff before I learned makeup was apparently not a thing boys were supposed to do. (My favorite colors to use were jade green and deep grey-indigo.) (nowadays I settle for small black stud earrings that are barely visible through my hair)

I puppy-dog-eyed her when she didn’t answer and threw the blankets off. I had been hot anyway. I kept one fluffy rainbow one draped across my back when I stood up. I was in silky grey pajama pants and an MCR tee I bought a couple years back. My finger-paint was still on by some miracle, and my hair was probably a mess. All in all, I concluded I was looking majestic this morning/afternoon/time in a place. 

A big pot of soup was sitting on the stove. Tomato, as I had figured out. Ray had made grilled cheese to go along with it, too. I padded over and thwapped a hand on one. Still warm. Where was he again?

Ugh. Probably having a life. Unlike me. 

I took one, ran a hand over a plate, found no life-threatening shards, placed it on, grabbed a bowl, repeated the hand-running process, got myself possibly too much soup, and sat myself down. Satisfied, Aaida went over to the bathroom to touch up one last time before going out. 

I dipped half the sandwich in at once and took a big munch. Good amount of butter, not burnt at all, gooey cheese in sufficient levels. He really was a miracle-worker. I glowered as I pictured the mean noodle soup I’d have to make later in competition. 

I sipped the soup alone, straight from the bowl since I wasn’t about to get up to get a spoon. A hint of caramelized onion, garlic and a whole load of spices as well as the tomato. Unfair. 

I ate the entire thing and went back for another sandwich, adding bacon Aaida had knowingly set out on top. Even cold (cooked earlier, apparently), the greasy wonder was still amazing. 

Aaida calls out a goodbye as she wraps a woolen white scarf around her shoulders, then gently closes the door. 

Okay. What was I going to do again today?

Cook, obviously. Take a few walks, people watch, check in online on what culture in general is doing, do some laundry, and most definitely house-shop for Aaida because I am a prideful bastard who doesn’t want her to lift a finger an inch higher than she has too. 

Well, most of those were productive. I was going to want to go to the library or surf online to study something or another as well. Having no formal instruction kind of sucked, when it wasn’t awesome. 

I surveyed the kitchen. I had chased Ray out to a few Chinese markets I had stumbled across, so it wasn’t exactly an ingredient desert. It was just my nonexistent ability to plan ahead stopping me right now.

Ginger was always good. And none of us were vegetarian or anything… chicken in the fridge… more veggies than he knew what to do with… and in the cupboards, several different kinds of food stock, if I was too lazy to make my own. Right. We could do this. 

Right after the laundry, because I was notorious for ‘forgetting it’. 

I discovered Aaida had bought a Won, a kind of bowl, pot and pan combination, for me, which was both terrible and great. One it was super useful, two, she bought it with her own money. 

However, it helped me make a mean chicken-noodle-veggie-ginger stew thing. I didn’t know the words for anything I made. Lots of research online and hearing Aaida describe watching Mother cook things when she was tiny was my main guide, past my own tongue. 

However, it still tasted good, so I took it as a success. The noodles came out good for not having a machine or anything, (I cut ‘em out with a pizza cutter, thank you very much) very even and whatever. Could have been rounder, though. (I only taste-tested, don’t freak out)

After moving along the laundry, I decided some exploring was in order. I grabbed my jacket, scribbled out a quick note in case either of my roommates came back, realized I was in PJ’s, changed into jeans and hoodie, left behind the jacket for the sake of comfort, put on my shoes, and left. (It was truly a process worthy of a ballad in my name. Or maybe a musical. A musical would also be acceptable.) 

I went to a nearby café, not the very first one with the weird chocolate, but one closer with a French-esque interior and supremely flaky pastries. I got something sweet, bready with some kind of jam pumped inside, and it was delicious. (I didn’t have to read a menu or anything, I just pointed at what I wanted and got it. It was great) Then I ordered a coffee with extra sugar, some experimental caramel and vanilla, and sat myself down in a booth. (Freaking coffee language) 

I watched a woman with an actual poodle come in and order. I wondered if she came in for aesthetic. I wondered why we didn’t have a coffee machine. I wondered why the word ‘poodle’ was an actual thing instead of gibberish. I contemplated the ridiculousness of the English language. I stewed a bit over the school situation (special school indeed) as the coffee was given to me, and took a sip.

Caramel is a miracle food.

Moving on. Some guy in a chunky sweater and too-big glasses came in, and I imagined he was a college student, maybe a veteran, maybe a freshman, gearing up for his next set of classes during lunch. A man with skin the same shade as the police chief’s in a sharp suit with a bright yellow pocket square ordered some healthy-sounded unholy drink. He was the CEO of a leading, massively successful company somewhere, probably doing hugely important things with his every working hour. A teen mom with incredible henna and a beautiful sunset-themed head-scarf, carefully walking along a tiny youngling of about five. She was the brave soul that had accepted this burst of light into her life, something I could never see myself doing. 

Did I want kids?

Not really. They looked like a whole lot of work, and I didn’t seem like the person to raise a functioning human being from scratch. 

Huh. 

A yawning girl in a crop top and ripped mom jeans, phone in hand as she leisurely texted away. A high school student of lunch break, maybe a new student scoping out the area. Or a regular ordering for her coming friend squad. A White Guy I immediately named Brad, (yep, one of those guys) possibly a tourist, maybe another student from a school in the area looking for a caffeine boost. A well-dressed plus-sized gaggle of nerds with fashion senses ranging from a cheetah bomber that reminded me of my sister to an emerald green wrap dress and heels. Where were they going at one in the afternoon? That one stumped me. Who had a party now? 

They could be they were a fashionable, fabulous bunch of rebels disobeying their parents and living life like a joy-ride. 

Appreciated.

My coffee was empty. This was a tragedy. I ordered another (with way more caramel this time around) and left the shop, feeling the need to move.

I left just as what appeared to be an all-female motorcycle gang with lavender flowers embroided on their clothes pulled in. 

Cool. I walked at a slightly brisk pace across the street, then slowed down as I rejoined the semi-steady flow of people on the sidewalk. People, carrying, stories, names, identities, lessons, ideas, pasts, genes, dynasties. (is that the word for it? If it is, it sounds amazing. Dynasty) 

I couldn’t know about each one of those things, but I could take a guess at some of them, and have a bit of fun in the meantime. And some much-needed exercise. 

I passed a climbing gym, debated going in, wimped out, and kept walking. Maybe one day, but walking a couple miles while working my brain would suffice for now. And also being up that high with nothing between you and the ground was your hand strength and a loop a rope sounded just a little bit nerve-wracking. 

I speed-walked past some tourist traps, admired the architecture of a few particular churches, marched through China Town, regretted that decision within twenty minutes, went back out, did another loop on my usual route minus The House, and started making my way back to the apartment. 

I was about three blocks away, practically spitting distance in my book, when I started feeling a bit weird. Not nauseous or sick or anything, I had eaten only a few hours ago and had practically entered a coma last night. I had had a bunch of water so far today and socialization by the tons just yesterday at the party. More like I started picking up on something weird around me. (not for the first time)

Not another supervillain, I didn’t think. You don’t really see many of the suckers going around in black jeans and too-big grey hoodies. 

But this guy had been following the same path I had been taking for at least six blocks. I had noticed him all bunched up in there, with his scarves and mittens and high boots, jokingly named him as cold-blooded, and moved on. But then I kept noticing him. A dozen times.

A stalker? That certainly didn’t take long. I’ve been in the ‘real world’ for what? A couple of weeks? 

I memorized his fashion choices after taking a sudden left turn and watching him cut through a crowd to follow after stumbling his way out of the path I had been hinting at taking. I scanned the crowd for people dressed like ‘im, and immediately found several. Which shouldn’t be too concerning on it’s own. Plenty of people had grey hoodies, dark jeans, and non-descript scarves and shoes. 

But this was six people within eyeshot of me. Always, I learned with another sharp turn, except for two.

Three, then. Three rando stalkers.

Great.

Aaaahhhhhhhhh.

I pretty much must have exactly how I felt at this point (the passing strangers could probably hear the sound of my internal screaming) but then suddenly I wasn’t. Two of the weirdos turned the corner, and the other went into bookstore he had actually been facing before.

Relief filled me. I was fine, it was cool. Just a couple of cold-bloods and my own wild imagination. Everything was totally okay.

I felt almost giddy. Uh, too much sugar. Cut down on the caramel, Aiden. 

I speed-walk the rest of the way back anyway, and lock the door behind me. Aaida will yell at me later when she has to have me unlock it for her to get in, but it’ll be worth it.

I collapse on my bed and rub Mira down all over a bit numbly.

I let out a long sigh as I flop backwards on my pillow fort so I’m hallway between sitting up and laying down. I decide to call the position sitting negative. (not down, for obvious reasons though it would be much more logical) I scrub at my face and go back through my list. Cooking, laundry, more or less done. Walking was off the hook for at least 24 hours. I could still surf the web for a while, do some apartment-browsing. I wondered if Aaida would be cool with us sharing a room if I managed us a dishwasher. (we both hated washing them) 

I pulled out my phone and hum calmingly as Mira climbs onto my chest. I hold the screen a bit higher to make room for her, damn my non-existent arm strength, and turn it on. After finishing being temporarily blinded by the sudden light so close to my face, and look around for a decent real estate website.

You need to relax. You just were very terrified. Went my inner monologue. 

We just to a walk. I replied.

Which caused the terrifying. Inner Monologue wasn’t great with English, or grammar. 

Shut up, we need to be productive.

We also need to calm down. Bah, calming down. Who needs it? 

A structured activity can be calming. Lack of stre-

Well, do we want two bedrooms or one? Can’t be sure without Aaida here, can we? How about how big the kitchen is going to be? How many bathrooms? Do we want a bathtub? Right, good point.

Okay, okay. So… pet the cat? 

I petted the cat, much to her pleasure. And is very much true that petting a fluffy, cute, friendly creature in the comfort of your own home surrounded by fuzzy blankets and throw pillows is very much calming, especially when you can hear the sound of the running water from your sister’s shower in the next room and realize another living soul is within the apartment. (ah, so she wouldn’t be angry at me after all. Awesome) 

After that, I went house-shopping. I looked for two beds, just to be safe, one bath (we’d already shared with our mother. Each other would probably be fine) most certainly a dishwasher, a bathtub/shower combo if at all possible, a decent kitchen (for NY anyway) and maybe one or two other rooms. Well, for an apartment, that was monstrously expensive. But I was apparently newly rich (would have to donate some of that, probably. No way we’re using all of it, right?) so I just kept an eye on the price and it turned out okay. 

I found a couple of different options, in different locations. There was a good deal for students and fist-time home buyers (ding and ding) that was in a more expensive neighborhood to try to draw in them youngsters. The only thing there was no laundry…

Next was one in a worse side of the city, but a bit bigger and better windows (natural light, wooh!) and high ceilings. (heck yeah) 

And the other and maybe last one didn’t have a dishwasher, which was a letdown (why did they switch the useful piece of equipment for a wine fridge?) but it had truly massive bedrooms and a cool living room/kitchen/chill area with a giant window and lots of wall space for art I was 99.72% sure Aaida was going to want to put up alongside anything I randomly found and thought looked pretty. And it was in an artsy neighborhood too. 

…Maybe we would replace the wine with a dishwasher? I looked up the size of both. Turns out, yeah, a wine fridge is actually bigger than your average plain jane dishwasher. Happy day. Wasn’t like we needed a massive on anyway…

Okay. I left links to all of those options and started surfing for funny cat vids, curious to on how Mira would react. 

The water had stopped. Aaida stepped out wrapped up in a towel, one in her hair, one around her, and started searching for something comfortable. She settled on a plain tee, a camo bomber and the same black jeans from the other day. I teased her as she wrestled into the jeans. 

“Using up all the hot water for me?”

She grinned. “Absolutely,” Even as she growl-faced the waistline of the pants.

I made a hhhmmmmming sound and kept going. “How’d the date go?” I was curious, but cautious in case it didn’t go great. 

She smiled. “Just fine. The girl was a ball of nerves, but I think we really liked each other. She’s trying to be an engineer.” I nodded because I didn’t know what else to do. 

She got a dreamy look in her eye I had only ever seen her adopt when she was talking about medical school. She chatted with me about this mystery girl for twenty minutes (she had inventions aplenty in her own place, and carried around a dozen of them with her at all times, which I thought was awesome. She should work for Stark Ind. Or make a start-up herself) before collapsing into her bed to check on social media feed. I listened to her laugh peacefully, some of which I doubted was caused by a funny pic, for a few minutes before getting up again. I had been planning on bunkering down in here for a least a few days after the stalker scare, which I still was holding onto (too many weird events to close together for me to not to) but my snack stash I had hauled over here with me in The Move had run dry the other day and I was in desperate need of Crunching. 

I remembered a convenience store just down the street, on the corner, actually, as I wrestled with my shoes. They had to have some good chip options, yeah?

Dark Fire (Demetri) Point of View

One of my older, more subtler adventures in skirting the law was a small corner grocery store, which was in truth rather more like a convenience store, and was now more funded by my other hobbies than it’s sold products. (most of it’s stock were cheap snacks and sodas and small toys, so this was to be expected) It ran by the kind of rules where if a regular mentioned a favorite item had gone out of stock, we would get more of it, and more regularly. (and by that I mean always) Once, (who am I kidding, at least three times a week) someone in in the past would randomly mention to the check-out clerk (who earns substantially more than minimum wage, thank you very much. He is a twenty-three-year-old with a family support, I’m not robbing him of grocery money) that they had changed their route home because they had nearly been assaulted the other night. Well, guess what rate dropped within twenty-four hours. (haha, petty crime is so predictable) I also frequently handed out diapers and formula, extremely healthy meal ingredients, clothing, bow-up mattresses, straight-up money to struggling single parents, the homeless, anyone who take it…

I also had more recently started funding schools and tuitions and floundering families and the sudden drop in crime is (not at all) shocking. Plus, I got to use the in-store cameras and staff as my eyes and ears to what people were actually saying and experiencing in the community.

See, Hacker Man had put an alert on our tracking systems for a certain teen, among others such as mob bosses and contending villains. So I wasn’t surprised when three went off at once when I walked across our ‘office’ for a coffee.

I looked over the shoulder of Nathan, our computer genius extraordinaire, as he clicked through two of them, both on random gang members I was keeping an eye, and landed on the one I was interested in. He knew I was watching. 

Ah, Aiden was in the store. I watched him move behind a shelf and out of sight. I couldn’t even see the top of his head sue to his small stature. I made a mental note to put up more cameras. If a fight broke out in there, I’d want to be kept posted. Audio wouldn’t do when I tracking someone down to kill ‘em.

It wasn’t stalking to watch a friend who was stalking a person, was it? Surely not. 

Just in case, I pulled away and went forward in search of my bean water. 

The office was… interesting to say the least. I mean, par for the course for my line of work, yes?

Our office was in an actual office building, shockingly. (Jiri was quite happy with the arrangement, when the dust settled) See, there had been a mob base here and everything, but I kind of did a mixture of a sneak attack, and actual attack, and some general posturing, and they jumped ship. 

Me, left with an empty office building, and thus, as per the usual, I started getting ideas.

I had initially been hoping on a Bat Cave/dramatic underground layer filled with cool-looking inventions and maybe a spiral staircase will vampire architecture and everything, but after two months of trying to figure out how that would go down, I decided that there was no way to pull that off without horribly breaking the law or dragging an innocent civilian into things (harboring a criminal, etc.) so we made do.

Mainly by making it the most awesome warehouse you’ve never stepped foot in. 

Obviously, hacker guy and Jiri had their own separate set-ups. Computer Genius’s space kind of looked like how I imagine NASA does: clogged with high-tech whatsits and drowning in papers. Not ass official looking documents as Jiri’s, but papers never less.

Jiri had chosen a space under a built-in skylight he had put in, and surrounded it with real plants and aesthetic lighting had even laid down hardwood throughout the entire building. (something I will forever be grateful for) And it was meticulously organized. There were sorting bins and folders and drawers all over, and if you saw a loose paper on his desk, it was piled on top of a perfectly straight stack being processed with the ungodly speed my PA had managed to find within day in, day out. 

The coffee area was basically a buffet line, with several high-tech machines and racks of creamer, sweeteners, pump extras, even an assortment of sprinkles for Jiri, who loved his hot chocolate nice and cutesy. There was also an entire shelf for tea bags, as well, if we were feeling up to it.

As it was, I brewed myself a vanilla cappuccino with some cream and the tiniest dabble of sugar and let it be. 

I had an idea shaping in my head, despite Jiri forbidding me from further projects. Paint in lots of homes, especially the cheaper ones, had dangerous levels of lead inside. (well. Any level of lead is worrying, but especially now) 

What had happened to the Liberty Painter teens again? They had been such a nice group, all chatty and friendly. And they had only asked for a few weeks of guarding their works as they developed them in return. I had offered money as a reward as well, of course, and while one of them did accept two twenties, the other two admitted, no they didn’t, mainly because I had been helping their families for months and they wanted to return the favor. 

And it had been massive fun to coordinate where paint and fire (or both) had been on Lady Liberty, took my mind off things too. 

I don’t think anything permanent happened after the big project was done… and it wouldn’t be something Jiri would have to coordinate… (que the maniacal laughter now!) 

“Hey Jiri?” I ventured as he sat down gracelessly at his desk on the big, plushy rolling chair I imagined would alternatively be used by a cartoonish villain dramatically turning towards our brave protagonist in while stroking his drugged-out kitty. 

He murmured slightly grumpily. “You’ve got to take an off-day. You’ll drive us both mad, and my day off isn’t too far off. We could take a vaca week or something, keep everyone on their toes, come back big. Remember last time?”

I nodded, indeed remembering the fun times of kicking the bleep out of a certain bleeeeeeeepppp. “Sounds great. But right before I was thinking on a project I would run on my own.”

Jiri mimicked my imaginary villain (minus his furry junkie, of course. I should get him one, something else to focus on, care about, talk to.) exactly as he swiveled around to glare at me suspiciously.

Hacker Man snorted humorously shortly before his partner in missions and love life bashed him non-too-gently on the head to quiet him. 

“Okay, look. You remember the Liberty spray-painter kids? And the lead paint in the homes all over? What if we just… did a flippy-switch and saved some people from being poisoned? And did an awesome art installation while we were at it?” 

Jiri’s lips thinned. “You’d be organizing it. And when would it go down? Darkness doesn’t cover shit in New York.” 

I looked at him hopefully. “Distraction?”

He sighed heavily. “FINE. But you’re going to do all the paperwork whatever, including for the distraction. I recommend a money-getting trip, just to safe. A big heist, all dramatic. Just what the city is holding its breath for.” And while they were all focused on that, I would be sprinting around the other side of town frantically stripping walls of paint.

Glorious plan.

“Well then.” I said as I gazed into my coffee, smiling in anticipation. “I have some phone calls to make, don’t I? And I’m giving you an extra three days off, in that case. Have a loooong spa day weekend.”

He smirked. “We’re both planning on it, buddy.”

I love Jiri a lot. So much so, ten minutes later, there was a hot cocoa mug roughly the size of Canada, filled up with cocoa, a bit of expresso, whipped cream, rainbow sprinkles, and liquid caramel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Roat me if you see any mistakes anywhere. I grammar check but my eyes don't pick up everything. Have a ball day.

**Author's Note:**

> Comment please. I'm a baby writer, support me. Kudos and everything. Come back. Don't abandon me, you monsters.


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